Technology & Science
Google Deploys Gemini 3 Across All Products and via Jio, Sparking U.S. Privacy Lawsuit
Between Nov 16-19 2025 Google switched on its new Gemini 3 model across Search, Workspace and a free 18-month Jio plan while a class-action suit in San Jose claimed the AI had been auto-enabled since Oct 10, vacuuming Gmail, Chat and Meet data without consent.
Focusing Facts
- Gemini 3 Pro launched 19 Nov 2025, topping LMArena at 1501 Elo and debuting simultaneously in the Gemini app, Search AI Mode, AI Studio, Vertex AI and Antigravity.
- Reliance Jio extended a Rs 35,100 Google AI Pro subscription—now upgraded to Gemini 3—to every Unlimited 5G user for 18 months at no extra cost starting 19 Nov 2025.
- A federal lawsuit filed 11 Nov 2025 alleges Google silently activated Gemini in Gmail, Chat and Meet for all users after 10 Oct 2025, breaching consent and privacy laws.
Context
Big tech has tried this playbook before: in 2011 Google force-linked Google+ to Gmail and Search, drawing a 2012 FTC consent decree; in 2018 Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal spurred the GDPR. Google now repeats the pattern—aggressive feature rollout first, permission architecture later—only this time the engine is a multimodal AI agent capable of reading every email and photo. The rapid bundling with Jio echoes Microsoft’s 1990s Windows-Internet Explorer strategy: lock in distribution by pre-installing on a dominant platform—in India’s case, the largest mobile-data market. Over the century-scale arc, the episode underlines two converging trends: (1) foundational models are becoming baseline utilities, distributed at telco scale, and (2) the legal notion of “informed consent” is eroding as AI is embedded invisibly into everyday infrastructure. Whether regulators can enforce data-minimisation rules before AI systems become indispensable knowledge layers will shape the next hundred years of digital sovereignty and civil liberties.
Perspectives
Privacy-focused tech publications
Privacy-focused tech publications — They frame Gemini’s silent expansion into Gmail, Chat and other Workspace apps as a serious breach of consent that sparked a class-action lawsuit over Google’s alleged mass surveillance of private communications. By foregrounding worst-case privacy scenarios and user distrust, these outlets can over-index on legal accusations while giving little room to Google’s rebuttals or the practical benefits of the AI tools they cover.
Tech industry media outlets
Tech industry media outlets — They celebrate Gemini 3 as Google’s most advanced multimodal model yet, highlighting benchmark wins, new ‘agentic’ abilities and tighter Search integration as proof Google is retaking the AI lead. Competitive-spec sheet coverage tends to echo Google’s marketing language and underplays unresolved issues such as subscription costs, safety guardrails and the very privacy lawsuit raised elsewhere.
Indian telecom & business press
Indian telecom & business press — They hail Reliance Jio’s deal to bundle Gemini 3 Pro free for 18 months with 5G plans as a democratising win that gives every Jio customer premium AI at zero extra cost. The partnership-centric reporting reads like promotional copy, spotlighting monetary savings and national access while skimming over long-term lock-in, data usage implications and what happens when the free window ends.