Have you ever had a conversation with a real person and then suddenly, your Google Assistant butts in because it thinks you were talking to it? Unfortunately and sometimes hilariously, this often happens to those who have turned on their digital assistants but particularly, Google’s own. And it can be inconvenient and disruptive at times. But apparently, there’s one basic command that you need to know if you want to tell your Assistant to mind its own business: “Hey Google, that wasn’t for you.”
According to a post on Droid Life, saying this simple command will actually delete the last thing you said and will prevent Google Assistant from processing what you said if you accidentally say yes or something to that effect. Now as to whether that will really and permanently delete that part of your conversation is another question given that we’re questioning the privacy practices of companies like Google.
You would think that the simple solution to this would just be for Google Assistant to not respond if there is no trigger phrase. But some who are dependent on the digital assistant would like to make it easier to access it and so finding the balance between privacy and convenience will always be tricky. At least with this command, you will be able to have some semblance of control over it.
In any case, there are also other Google Assistant commands that you can do to erase your Google activity. You can say something like “Delete my last conversation” if it’s something you don’t want to reflect on your history. Or you can even say something like “Delete today’s activity” which should be more encompassing. Google says they want to make it easier for you to remove parts (or all) of your history.
There’s no need to update or download anything. Just say “Hey Google, that wasn’t for you” and it should forget what you previously said. Well, at least on paper.
