Source: https://front-end.social/@fox/110846484782705013

Text in the screenshot from Grammarly says:

We develop data sets to train our algorithms so that we can improve the services we provide to customers like you. We have devoted significant time and resources to developing methods to ensure that these data sets are anonymized and de-identified.

To develop these data sets, we sample snippets of text at random, disassociate them from a user’s account, and then use a variety of different methods to strip the text of identifying information (such as identifiers, contact details, addresses, etc.). Only then do we use the snippets to train our algorithms-and the original text is deleted. In other words, we don’t store any text in a manner that can be associated with your account or used to identify you or anyone else.

We currently offer a feature that permits customers to opt out of this use for Grammarly Business teams of 500 users or more. Please let me know if you might be interested in a license of this size, and I’II forward your request to the corresponding team.

  • ALERT@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    613·
    1 year ago

    What’s wrong with using one’s typed text to improve Grammarly? Why is anyone obsessed with opting out of improving products using the results of their usage? I always allow products to use my data, track my activity, send non-anonymous bug reports, etc. Am I a bad person?

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
      61·
      1 year ago

      You’re not a bad person, you’re just not concerned with privacy or the value of things you make.

      I almost never allow any of that because I expect companies to compensate me for helping them improve their product. If they can’t provide a quality product without that, they should increase their prices to hire more staff or pay customers for access to their data.

      That said, I’m a lot more willing to agree for open source projects because there isn’t a profit motive there, and it’s a small way of helping the project. I still occasionally refuse (esp. for a company like Mozilla that often ignores community feedback), though I’ll try to help in other ways (evangelism, detailed bug reports, etc).

      But if a company is profiting off me, I expect as least a little of that back if I’m going to allow them to use my data.

      • SMITHandWESSON@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        1 year ago

        I totally get what youre saying, but its going to be nearly impossible for you to live up to that if you use social media in any form.

        The statement you just typed is probably going to be scrapped and used to train AI. The only way you can win is to not use the internet to interact with people.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
          31·
          1 year ago

          Yup, and that’s a large part of why I don’t use larger SM. Yeah, Meta, Twitter/X, Microsoft, Google, etc can scrape lemmy, but that’s unlikely to be a huge source of info. But if they scrape, they scrape, and I guess I’m okay with that.

          My larger concern is with privacy. I try to mitigate the privacy concerns by recreating my SM accounts every year or two, so that way at least I won’t likely be doxxed.

          So on the side, I’m looking into ways of building more robust SM. I’m interested in fully decentralized systems, which can optionally be encrypted and limited to a few. ActivityPub gets close, but it still relies on public servers to store content, and many services aren’t encrypted. I’m more interested in p2p systems like IPFS, and I think a reasonably intuitive system can be built in that way. In fact, I’m planning on building a lemmy-compatible instance that uses Iroh as the backend storage and connection mechanism once Iroh gets to a usable state.

          But I’m not exactly a zealot here. I didn’t switch to lemmy until Reddit announced its third party API pricing change (I switched before my app of choice shut down), because I value convenience. Lemmy is now big enough for me, so I’m looking into the next step.

    • Polar@lemmy.ca
      28·
      1 year ago

      No you’re not a bad person.

      You have to realize that Lemmy is currently hardcore nerds. Linux, Firefox, and FOSS only users.

      People here are so hateful against Sync for Lemmy (previously one of the most beloved Reddit apps) because it’s not FOSS.

      It’s actually quite annoying.

      https://lemmy.world/comment/2195946