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Indian Express
16 hours ago
- Business
- Indian Express
Worried your data is used to train AI models? Here's how to opt-out (if you can)
Fueled by vast troves of data, the generative AI boom is prompting several tech companies to quietly update their privacy policies and terms of service so that they may use your data to train their AI models or licence it out to other companies for the same purpose. Last week, popular filesharing service WeTransfer faced immediate backlash from users after it revised the platform's terms of service agreement to suggest that files uploaded by users could be used to 'improve machine learning models.' The company has since tried to patch things up by removing any mention of AI and machine learning from the document. While WeTransfer has backtracked on its decision, the incident shows that user concerns over privacy and data ownership have intensified in the age of AI. Tech companies are scraping publicly available, copyright-protected data from every nook and corner of the internet to train their AI models. This data might include anything you've ever posted online, from a funny tweet to a thoughtful blog post, restaurant review, and Instagram selfie. While this indiscriminate scrapping of the internet has been legally challenged in courts by several artists, content creators, and other rights holders, there are also certain steps that individual users can take to prevent everything they post online from being used for AI training. As more and more users have rallied to raise concerns about this issue, many companies now let individuals and business customers opt out of having their content used in AI training or being sold for training purposes. If you are an artist or content creator who wants to know if your work has been scraped for AI training, you can visit the website 'Have I Been Trained?', which is a service run by tech startup Spawning. If you've discovered that your data has been used to train AI models, here's what you can (and can't) do about it depending on the platform. Keep in mind that while many companies choose to opt-in their users for AI training by default, opting out does not necessarily mean that the data already used for AI training or part of datasets will be erased. If you have a business or school Adobe account, you are automatically opted out of AI training. For those who have a personal Adobe account, follow these steps: -Visit Adobe's privacy page -Scroll down to the Content analysis for product improvement section -Press the toggle off Google says that user interactions with its Gemini AI chatbot may be selected for human review to help improve the underlying LLM. Follow these steps to opt out of this process: -Open Gemini in your browser, -Go to Activity -Select the Turn Off drop-down menu -Turn off the Gemini Apps Activity If you have an X account, follow these steps to opt out of your data being used to train Grok, the chatbot developed by Elon Musk's xAI: -Go to Settings -Go to privacy section, then Privacy and safety -Open the Grok tab -Uncheck the data sharing option In September last year, LinkedIn announced that data including user posts will be used to train AI models. Follow these steps to prevent your new LinkedIn posts from being used for AI training: -Go to your LinkedIn profile -Open Settings -Click on Data Privacy -Toggle off the option labeled 'Use my data for training content creation AI models.' According to OpenAI's help pages, web users who want to opt out of AI training can follow these steps: -Navigate to Settings -Go to Data Controls -Uncheck 'improve the model for everyone' option In the case of its image generator DALL-E, OpenAI said that users who want their images to be removed from future training datasets have to submit a form with their details such as name, email, and whether they own the rights to the content. While these steps may get you to opt out of AI training, it is worth noting that many companies building AI models or machine learning features have likely already scraped the web. These companies often tend to be secretive about what data has been swept into their training datasets as they are wary of copyright infringement lawsuits or facing scrutiny by data protection authorities. The tech industry largely believes that anything publicly available online is fair game for AI training. For instance, Meta scrapes publicly-shared content from users above 18 for AI training with exceptions only for users in countries that are part of the European Union (EU).
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
WeTransfer prompts outrage with new terms and conditions
A change to WeTransfer's terms and conditions has prompted global outrage. The company has now reversed its more controversial updates and suggested that the outcry was the result of 'confusion'. WeTransfer allows users to upload files so that they can be sent to other people on the internet, who can then download them again. A recent change to its terms, which was due to go into effect on 8 August, gave it the ability to use uploaded files 'improve performance of machine learning models'. It is part of a sweeping set of rules that allow WeTransfer to use files in a variety of ways, which it said are necessary to power the service. But those changes, particularly those that suggested that private files could be used to train artificial intelligence tools, prompted outcry and suggestions that people should use other competitors instead. Now, WeTransfer has told the BBC that it doesn't 'use machine learning or any form of AI to process content shared via WeTransfer, nor do we sell content or data to any third parties'. The clause had been added to allow it to potentially use 'AI to improve content moderation' and limit the spread of harmful content, it said. But it said that it would alter the terms to make 'the language easier to understand'. 'This passage may have caused confusion for our customers,' it told the BBC. WeTransfer has now tweaked the rules so that WeTransfer still has license to use the content that is uploaded but to remove reference to artificial intelligence. 'You hereby grant us a royalty-free license to use your Content for the purposes of operating, developing, and improving the Service, all in accordance with our Privacy & Cookie Policy,' the updated change now reads. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent. They will still go into effect on 8 August. Sign in to access your portfolio
Indian Express
4 days ago
- Business
- Indian Express
WeTransfer revises terms of service after user backlash over AI training concerns
WeTransfer, the platform used by many creative professionals to transfer their work online, has faced intense user backlash for the past couple of days over its terms of service agreement. Now it is trying to patch things up. The Netherlands-based company on Tuesday, July 15, announced it has tweaked its service terms to remove any mention of machine learning and AI. 'We wanted to clarify that we don't use machine learning or any form of AI to process content shared via WeTransfer,' the company wrote in a post on X. The clarification comes after public backlash sparked by a recent update to WeTransfer's service terms, where the company had suggested that files uploaded by users could be used to 'improve machine learning models.' The clause in the original version had said that WeTransfer only had a right to 'reproduce, modify, distribute and publicly display' content. 'From your feedback, we understood that it may have been unclear that you retain ownership and control of your content. We've since updated the terms further to make them easier to understand. We've also removed the mention of machine learning, as it's not something WeTransfer uses in connection with customer content and may have caused some apprehension,' the company said. The relevant section in the latest version of the terms of service agreement reads: 'You hereby grant us a royalty-free license to use your content for the purposes of operating, developing, and improving the service, all in accordance with our privacy & cookie policy.' User concerns over privacy and data ownership have intensified in the age of AI, as tech companies are scraping publicly available, copyright-protected data from every nook and corner of the internet to train their AI models. For instance, Elon Musk's xAI uses public posts on X to train its Grok chatbot while Meta scrapes publicly-shared content from users above 18 for AI training. This is done by both platforms without obtaining user consent first. User content has never been used, even internally, to test or develop AI models, according to a WeTransfer spokesperson. 'We hope that amending our legal terms to remove mention of machine learning and make the licensing conditions clearer will reassure those among our customers who were wondering what the update meant for them,' the spokesperson was quoted as saying by The Guardian. Founded in 2009, WeTransfer is used to send large files via email or by sharing a link. Users do not need to create an account to use the filesharing service. The platform reportedly has over 80 million monthly users across 190 countries.
Tahawul Tech
4 days ago
- Tahawul Tech
AWS Marketplace Archives
"We don't use machine learning or any form of AI to process content shared via WeTransfer". Learn more about these data protection concerns below. #WeTransfer #tahawultech #AI #DataProtection
Tahawul Tech
5 days ago
- Tahawul Tech
advertising rules Archives
"We don't use machine learning or any form of AI to process content shared via WeTransfer". Learn more about these data protection concerns below. #WeTransfer #tahawultech #AI #DataProtection
