> I agree that OCR is an important tool for end users, especially those with accessibility needs, and that we shouldn't use something like this lightly, but the context is completely different here. If I want to send you a PDF from my gmail, and want to make it difficult for Google to leverage that data - that's completely different than if I were a giant media company, gatekeeping to ensure a huge portion of culture flows through me, which I then claim as my own and charge exorbitant rents for, enforced by DRM.
There are easier ways to do this, such as encrypting the PDF. It is trivially easy to password protect a PDF as well [0], it is even a part of the PDF spec. It isn't ironclad, but it will defeat Gmail's indexer.
There are easier ways to do this, such as encrypting the PDF. It is trivially easy to password protect a PDF as well [0], it is even a part of the PDF spec. It isn't ironclad, but it will defeat Gmail's indexer.
[0]: https://digify.com/blog/protect-pdf-with-password/