A small price to pay for a cleaner inbox
Google Messages started testing categories more than a year ago in India, recently expanding the feature to new regions. Being a one-stop destination for regular communication, OTP pins, and promotional messages meant the app became cluttered quickly, so categorization came in as a necessity. The feature uses AI algorithms to identify which message belongs to which category – something that requires training with massive amounts of data to become more accurate. To speed up this process, Google has recently started soliciting message “donations” from users.
If asked to participate, you’ll now see a new prompt along the top of your display to make message donations to Google to improve the app’s sorting process. Participation is optional, of course, meaning you can always refuse the offer if you don’t feel comfortable with it.
Those bold enough to go along with it will be redirected to a page where you can select messages to send to Google. The app focuses on promotional and business-related text messages, all of which are selected to be sent by default. If a specific entry contains sensitive information, you can deselect it from your list. Google is also obscuring phone numbers and links before submission to ensure any information tied to you will not reach places you don’t want it.
Thankfully, there’s also a compromise solution, in case you really want to help out Google’s quest for data without risking your own. You can manually censor your own messages, editing out bits from each piece of material before sending them in. When all looks good, you can simply hit the confirm button to know that your submission is yet another step to someday seeing improved organization in the Messages app.
The new prompt only appears for select users, so you won’t necessarily see it the next time you open Google Messages. Remember, it’s a completely optional request — you aren’t required to hand over any data.
Thanks: Nick
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