The conspiracy that never dies. I think it's so sticky because people feel very uncomfortable when they realize how much Google knows about you without having to listen.
It is not conspiracy. There is literally an option on your Google account to stop using mic for collecting data. On older accounts, it is enabled by default.
Are you referring to the voice assistant telemetry? That's not passively recorded according to Google, but if you have evidence to the contrary I can think of a number of news outlets (and prosecutors in 2 party consent states) that would love to have it.
The option was there before voice assistant existed in 2013 or something. That is when I figured it out myself. I don't know how the description of that is changed during the years.
