That’s kinda my point, though. You have the Google Assistant app for a legitimate reason, and its need to use your microphone is also equally legitimate…the problem comes in when Google says that they don’t monitor what you’re saying, or worse, they say they can’t because your phone processes it all locally. They have this giant loophole that they take advantage of here, in that while they do not keep track of what you say themselves, they embed a third party service that does. While not particularly surprising given it’s Google, that’s shady as fuck and they shouldn’t be able to say they don’t monitor just because they let their little bro Alphonso do it on their behalf and they magically get off on a technicality.

Is that to say that it’s no longer valid? Or just that it’s old news? The list of apps associated with the software is still pretty extensive; Google Assistant even showed up.