Has Google Grabbed Your Manuscript?
The short answer is “Yes.”
And here’s why I say so:
Video about Google grabbing your gmail and attachments
Impact on You as an Author
Chances are extremely slim of any author getting anything from suing Google and other AI companies over this and similar egregious violations of our copyrights. And these companies know it.
Also, a lot of publishers, editors, literary agents, and others you might want to involve in your publishing process have Gmail addresses. Sending them your stuff means you’re giving it to Google. Just think of your hard work gone in the blink of a gnat’s eye.
The thing to do here is avoid receiving from and/or sending to a Gmail address. And if you have a Gmail address, dump it and get an address with Proton Mail, Earthlink, or similar providers. (Psst! Yahoo mail, I’ve recently heard, is terribly on privacy and security.) Also, once you’ve made that move, add the domain “gmail.com” to your blocked senders list.
A Tip: If you think your manuscript has been grabbed by AI, post an official notice about the work as yours. It may have no impact, but then again…
Here is mine:
Official Notice
And I am giving official notice of the following in case Google uses the manuscript they grabbed from me and publishes it under some fake author name:
On 12 October 2025, I emailed the manuscript of The Journey of Peter Thorn to Jamie Wilson at Conservatarian Press. Sadly, she has a Gmail address. (Hey, I get it. Gmail is “free.” That is, you pay through other means than a monthly bill.) This work is 100% created by me and my husband who is a “with” author because of the extent of his contributions to the text.
I even created this rough for a cover design:
See some of my other articles mentioning the Peter Thorn character:
Authors and Readers as Philosophers (character mentioned about halfway down)
On Substack: https://accargillauthor.substack.com/publish/post/127148260 (in the section “Character Naming – What a Pain!”)
Having a Character Do Something You Wouldn’t or Couldn’t (under “A Few Examples”)
Best wishes!
My six books (so far):
I ask a small favor: if you’ve bought and/or read any of these, please post a review here or elsewhere online.
Where to Buy:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop | BookBub | Books-A-Million | Everand | Apple Books | Kobo | Smashwords | Thalia (German) ebook & print | Angus & Robertson | Mondadori (Italian) | Vivlio (French/English) | Fable | Thriftbooks
Audible Links
Wind Down the Chimney and Other Eerie Tales
The Stardust Alliance and More
That's certainly very alarming. And these days, when it's so easy to get a book released quickly, it's very possible a work in progress like that, or elements of it, could end up being published by some other means before you get a chance to do it yourself, once it's in the system and being used to generate things... 😎
Google is denying using scanned email contents to train its AI, saying instead they use it to sort into primary vs. promotions, but of course, that's what Google is claiming, so who knows.