Updated on Nov. 30 with new analysis into Google’s AI upgrades and the critical decisions 2 billion users now face to maintain their security and privacy.

There’s nothing to worry about, Google tells Gmail’s 2 billion users, everything is fine. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. There is a serious issue that you need to worry about. All the misleading headlines and quickfire denials have not made that go away.

In recent weeks we have seen two versions of the same pattern. A loosely framed Gmail story triggering wild headlines and a public correction. First was a huge security breach framed as a new Gmail password leak. Then came a new Google policy on AI training.