I use an Android phone and I'm finding out that there is no way to stop Google from spying on my photos.

The backup setting can get reset when you install updates via Google Play Store, when you update the phone's OS, when you sign out and back in to your Google account, and under other circumstances too.

And it's political. The elite shouldn't be viewing our stuff, and we shouldn't be surrendering our privacy just because we use their products.

The Federal Trade Commission should investigate because it's deceptive. I
want to see this engraved into all smartphones: "Warning! This device will share your photos and videos with elites."

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/04/30 (Windows/64)
* Origin: JoesBBS.Com, Telnet:23 SSH:22 HTTP:80 (1:342/201)

Aaron Thomas wrote to All <=-

I use an Android phone and I'm finding out that there is no way to stop Google from spying on my photos.

That's just common sense.

The backup setting can get reset when you install updates via Google
Play Store, when you update the phone's OS, when you sign out and back
in to your Google account, and under other circumstances too.

Yes, you have to be vigilant. I go through my phone apps every couple of weeks to deactivate stuff that mysteriously got activated again.

And it's political. The elite shouldn't be viewing our stuff, and we shouldn't be surrendering our privacy just because we use their
products.

Not really political. The Elitists only use politics for their ends.

In this case, Google probably uses your photos and the metadata (location, time, etc.) to train their AI stuff. But Elitists love to spy on us plebes because they gotta know what we are doing so they can criticize us for our "bad" decisions.

The Federal Trade Commission should investigate because it's deceptive.
I want to see this engraved into all smartphones: "Warning! This device will share your photos and videos with elites."

I'm sure that was buried in the Terms when you got your phone.


... Worth seeing? Yes, but not worth going to see.
___ MultiMail/Linux v0.52

--- Mystic BBS/QWK v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (1:120/616)

Re: Re: Google loves photos
By: Ron L. to Aaron Thomas on Wed Jun 10 2026 07:09 am

I use an Android phone and I'm finding out that there is no way to
stop Google from spying on my photos.

That's just common sense.

Of course they'll spy on everything I do with my phone, but I was surprised to see copies of photos that people texted to me show up in photos.google.com.

I guess their terms probably said something like "Even if you opt out of Google Photos, we'll still save copies of anything that people send to you via text message."

Yes, you have to be vigilant. I go through my phone apps every couple of weeks to deactivate stuff that mysteriously got activated again.

I considered writing my own SMS app to avoid using Google Messages, but apparently it's not feasible without coordination with the phone companies. (I could make an internet messaging app but that doesn't solve the problem.)

In this case, Google probably uses your photos and the metadata (location, time, etc.) to train their AI stuff. But Elitists love to spy on us plebes because they gotta know what we are doing so they can criticize us for our "bad" decisions.

Right. "According to a study, white men go to the beach more often than black men."

--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32
* Origin: Shenk's Express (1:275/100)

Aaron Thomas wrote to Dr. What <=-

Of course they'll spy on everything I do with my phone, but I was surprised to see copies of photos that people texted to me show up in photos.google.com.

That's a setting you can change. I have it set because I want to back up those pictures.

My process is this:
1. Take the picture with my phone.
2. Have it auto-upload to photos.google.com.
3. Download the photo to my server.
4. Delete it from Google - unless I'm intending to share it with others.

"There is no Cloud. There's just someone else's computer."

This doesn't help much on privacy since Google has a copy of everything for a bit. But it does mean I am not beholden to Google to protect my photos.

I guess their terms probably said something like "Even if you opt out
of Google Photos, we'll still save copies of anything that people send
to you via text message."

Yup. And you can assume that your phone provider does the same thing since those texted photos came across their network infrastructure.

I considered writing my own SMS app to avoid using Google Messages, but apparently it's not feasible without coordination with the phone companies. (I could make an internet messaging app but that doesn't
solve the problem.)

You are highlighting part of the problem here, though.

People, in general, somehow think that using someone else's network/computer/etc. is "secure". It's not and never was.

There was even a case that came up a few years back where someone was doing some testing with an email app on his phone. For some reason the secure SMTP process wasn't working. Long story short: He discovered that his phone network provider was sniffing and modifying (in violation of federal law) his SMTP messages to block the SMTP option to enable security.


... You can send me to college, but you can't make me think.
___ MultiMail/Linux v0.52

--- Mystic BBS/QWK v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (1:120/616)

People, in general, somehow think that using someone else's network/computer/etc. is "secure". It's not and never was.

There was even a case that came up a few years back where someone was doing some testing with an email app on his phone. For some reason the secure SMTP process wasn't working. Long story short: He discovered
that his phone network provider was sniffing and modifying (in violation of federal law) his SMTP messages to block the SMTP option to enable security.

That sound awfully hackerlike for the phone company to do. It's bad enough that people are discouraged from running their own SMTP server, but the elites are actually checking to make sure (in some cases) that mail can't flow.

I've been pretty lucky with my mail server so far, but it's been up for a couple years now and mail from it still doesn't reach hotmail/outlook/microsoft inboxes yet. They have a volume metric; my mail server needs to build a reputation for sending tons of mail each day and until then it goes to SPAM/Junk folders.

Gmail is cool about it. I can deliver to Gmail inboxes. I'm not sure about Yahoo and/or Apple at the moment.

Don't they know that they'll get the pleasure of spying on mail that I send to people? :)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/04/30 (Windows/64)
* Origin: JoesBBS.Com, Telnet:23 SSH:22 HTTP:80 (1:342/201)

Aaron Thomas wrote to Dr. What <=-

That sound awfully hackerlike for the phone company to do. It's bad
enough that people are discouraged from running their own SMTP server,
but the elites are actually checking to make sure (in some cases) that mail can't flow.

The phone company claimed it was just something left over from "debugging" a problem.

But the real reason was so that they could sniff all your email traffic to collect information on you.

Gmail is cool about it. I can deliver to Gmail inboxes. I'm not sure
about Yahoo and/or Apple at the moment.

I'm trying to remember the process... But sooooo much email was coming from (or through) untrusted servers that they put a process in place where, when you set up an email server, you could register it. Then other email servers could choose to trust that registation and block email coming from an untrustworthy source. It GREATLY reduced the amount of spam.

Google doesn't use it - hence why I have to clean out my spam bucket every day. Others do - but the downside is that they might quietly block legitimate email.


... Programmers don't get sniffles, they get a CODE.
___ MultiMail/Linux v0.52

--- Mystic BBS/QWK v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: cold fusion - cfbbs.net - grand rapids, mi (1:120/616)