- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
Edited the title to what the article has now.
Is… is Dropbox… pirating user files???
That’s my intellectual property in there
Is it still?
It’s OUR intellectual property, comrade.
(My money though)
Sincerely,
Dropbox
… enabled-by-default…
… shares your Dropbox data with OpenAI …
… an experimental AI-powered search feature. …
… user data [IS] shared with third-party AI partners…
This would be more than enough reason for me to cancel and delete my account if I were still a customer.
If you can’t trust a company with your data, then you can’t trust the company at all.
Why do companies have to be so opaque with things? If they really wanted users to try some experimental, data-sharing feature, offer it to them as an opt-in beta feature and pay them for being a guinea pig.
Consent with compensation is way better than non-consent with zero transparency.
This should be justification enough for any enterprise company using Dropbox to dump them overboard
Fuck. I have been using them for backup for years, I currently have everything on my NAS but still like having important stuff in an offsite backup.
Anyone know a reasonably priced cloud storage provider that has integration (either 3rd or 1st party) with Unraid?
They fucking WHAT.
Weird, I can’t find the setting in settings…
Same. I bet Dropbox is running damage control on it.
Article said this news already hit other social media platforms.
It’s not in any of the articles, but in dropbox forums:
The Third-Party AI features are not available to everyone yet. The features are in alpha and are only available to customers on Dropbox Professional, Essentials, Business, Business Plus, and some customers on Dropbox Standard and Advanced.
If you’re on a Basic, Plus or Family account, or you’re part of one of the other groups that don’t yet have access, the Third-Party AI features won’t be available to you.
Cool, so we have to just keep thinking about it and checking in to turn it off. Great way to combat a wave of people opting out.
Same, it’s not in my settings anywhere.
Enabled by default but can’t be disabled…
Pinned comment on original article says:
Didn’t see it mentioned in the article, but per the linked FAQ it says the alpha AI applies to:
In countries with the preferred language set to English.
Excluding Canada, the UK (United Kingdom), and countries within the EEA (European Economic Area).
They set it for me in Canada, so they are lying there
Hmm. I’m in the US. But I maybe I didn’t tell Dropbox I prefer English back when I signed up nearly 20 years ago.
Does Canada have a GDPR equivalent?
Closest I can think of is “FOIPP” (Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy) in Alberta at least (not sure if the rest of the country has equivalents). But that’s mostly things like “you can’t share this confidential email with someone else without my permission” kind of thing.
There is no GDPR issue here.
I found it under “Third-party AI” on the web portal settings. It was enabled for me, I’m in the US.
And this is precisely why you don’t store your files in the cloud.
Me with my 70 gigabytes of furry porn commissions
*unencrypted
So glad I stopped using dropbox as soon as they hired Condoleeza Rice.
There’s my people. I had to scroll too far!
I have no idea what this is about, can you explain?
EDIT: Oh it wasn’t that hard to find
PSA: use Cryptomator if u gonna use public clouds
Also: public cloud + cryptomator > e2ee cloud (Proton etc)
That’s neat, thanks!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In its FAQ, Dropbox contradicts this claim, saying, “We won’t let our third-party partners train their models on our user data without consent.”
In July, the company announced an AI-powered feature called Dash that allows AI models to perform universal searches across platforms like Google Workspace and Microsoft Outlook.
Still, multiple Ars Technica staff who had no knowledge of the Dropbox AI alpha found the setting enabled by default when they checked.
It also says, “Only the content relevant to an explicit request or command is sent to our third-party AI partners to generate an answer, summary, or transcript.”
Log into your Dropbox account on a desktop web browser, then click your profile photo > Settings > Third-party AI.
On that page, click the switch beside “Use artificial intelligence (AI) from third-party partners so you can work faster in Dropbox” to toggle it into the “Off” position.
The original article contains 518 words, the summary contains 147 words. Saved 72%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Only related to an explicit request. And yet to fulfill that request “tax documents related to business Y” will require that the API have a catalog of that data aggregated already to fulfill that request
Unsettling
Not available in Europe, UK and Canada, but in California. Interesting
Hey I was thinking about cloud backups. I gotta encrypt important files then if dropbox is gonna have AI go through them at will. My alternative was just copying stuff to a hard drive and shoving it in a safety deposit box…
Be interesting to see how long after today this stands
On a side note, I love that article image that they used. The contrast it’s trying to portray is so chef’s kiss
Dafuq…
I found this in my settings. I never know if the option is on or off… It’s on, right?When you enable it it says below that “do not sell or share is now active”
How unsurprising, a headline that technically doesn’t lie, but also gives a completely misleading impression. At least it has been fixed since: the current, accurate one is “Dropbox spooks users with new AI features that send data to OpenAI when used”
Because your files only get sent to the AI search service if you use the AI search feature, which it tells you will send the one specific file you are asking the AI to analyze to OpenAi. Which, you know… Duh?
The third-party AI toggle is only turned on to give all eligible customers the opportunity to view our new AI features and functionality, like Dropbox AI. It does not enable customers to use these features without notice. Any features that use third-party AI offer disclosure of third-party use, and link to settings that they can manage. Only after a customer sees the third-party AI transparency banner and chooses to proceed with asking a question about a file, will that file be sent to a third-party to generate answers. Our customers are still in control of when and how they use these features