AI feature turned on by default worries users; Dropbox responds to concerns.
  • bedrooms
    27•11 months ago

    They’re astonishingly poor at data ownership. When they started Dropbox Paper, a note taking web app, they sent the inline images to a different web domain. The image, doing so, became publicly visible to anyone knowing the URL! They did this without explaining anything to the user.

    They also did not clarify who owns the copyright of these images sent to an apparent third party company.

    Seriously, Dropbox’s user privacy and copyright management is incompetent and untrustworthy.

    • mayooooo
      10•11 months ago

      For some reason I always felt they were not trustworthy, like years and years. This doesn’t come as a surprise

    • TakatakatakatakatakEnglish
      27•11 months ago

      Nobody uses dropbox because they like dropbox. They use it because it’s usually the only such service supported by the stupid fucking app they need on the stupid fucking ipad their company insists they use which has no other viable way to put files on and off of the fucking cunting thing because apple is fucking stupid and so is this god damn company.

      Someone once told the IT manager that apple devices are “the most secure” and he doesn’t even fucking realise that by forcing us to use fucking stupid third party fucking services like fucking dropbox to get files on and off that they are subjecting confidential commercial fucking information to being fucking exposed to third fucking party boneless fucking cunts.

      • @[email protected]
        3•11 months ago

        As somebody that sometimes has to do ticket support, you would be surprises how many people have chosen drop box over SMB NFS or a sync client. Maybe because they or their IT didn’t have basic Shares knilowledge so DropBox was the simplest method they found.

        • @[email protected]
          3•11 months ago

          DropBox nailed it in replicating all the Windows’s share sync features, but doing it over HTTP to a web server with a web interface without the need to have someone from IT set it up. They nailed it again by spreading to multiple platforms, particularly the mobile ones, which lets people access and use their files from anywhere. And then nailed it once more by introducing file version history.

          At this point, yes, Windows has the same, or arguably more, features… but where those features really shine, is on mobile, and DropBox is king there, so it’s only natural that people would use it everywhere.

      • @[email protected]
        3•11 months ago

        Obsidian user with self-maintained vault sync across MacOS, Android and Linux, reporting for duty! 🙄

        Gave up on Google Drive, MacOS and Android worked perfectly, Linux was a complete pain and never got it working properly. Screw you, Google, get your shit together and support Linux, already! 😡

        • @[email protected]
          2•11 months ago

          Gnome Desktop makes Google services easy. You go into accounts and add your google credentials, it then sets up Gdrive in file browser, email, and calendar for you. But even though I like Gnome i got rid of google since they suck now

          • @[email protected]
            1•11 months ago

            Yeah, I’m on Fedora/KDE, maybe that’s the issue 🤔

            Fun twist, the Linux laptop is actually a beloved Chromebook (the fantastic Asus C302) that Google EOL’d and that I then converted to Linux 😅

  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    5•11 months ago

    🤖 I’m a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

    Click here to see the summary

    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.

    Saved 72% of original text.