Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise tooling, and an automatic re-download every time the user deletes it. The pattern is identical to the Anthropic Claude Desktop case I wrote about last month, but the scale is between two and three orders of magnitude larger. This article does the legal analysis and, for the first time, the environmental analysis. The numbers are not small.
I don’t remember Gmail ever offering unlimited storage, and I can’t find any record of that offer ever being made, either. When they first launched, they gave 1GB, which was the highest of any free email service at the time by an order of magnitude, but never unlimited.
I have had Gmail since it was in beta and needed an invite to use.
Yes, it was originally touted as unlimited email. “Never have to delete another email!!” This was in 2003 (or was early 2004? It all runs together these days. I got married in 03, and got the invite not too long after) when my cousin sent me the invite.
The big webmail provider back then was yahoo.com, and I still have that email address as well. AOL even started offering a free webmail for people who had broadband Internet, but wanted to use or keep their old dial up AOL account.
Hotmail was also a thing, and this was before MS bought them and merged it with msn.com
They kept incrementally adding more storage capacity to your account every day. It slowly ticked up and their marketing claim was that it would just keep growing forever. As we can see, that… did not happen.
I don’t remember Gmail ever offering unlimited storage, and I can’t find any record of that offer ever being made, either. When they first launched, they gave 1GB, which was the highest of any free email service at the time by an order of magnitude, but never unlimited.
I have had Gmail since it was in beta and needed an invite to use.
Yes, it was originally touted as unlimited email. “Never have to delete another email!!” This was in 2003 (or was early 2004? It all runs together these days. I got married in 03, and got the invite not too long after) when my cousin sent me the invite.
The big webmail provider back then was yahoo.com, and I still have that email address as well. AOL even started offering a free webmail for people who had broadband Internet, but wanted to use or keep their old dial up AOL account.
Hotmail was also a thing, and this was before MS bought them and merged it with msn.com
They kept incrementally adding more storage capacity to your account every day. It slowly ticked up and their marketing claim was that it would just keep growing forever. As we can see, that… did not happen.