If you use voice actions, they also store voice recordings on the cloud.

Google Now saddens me, since the obvious focus is now data collection (same goes for Fit), instead of working on the platform more (battery drain and memory leaks in Lollipop and they haven't even address it publicly after 3 months).

I'm sure Google has the resources to do both. Google Now was always touted as a personal assistant of sorts, which can only be helpful if it knows a lot about you. Don't have to use it.

And there are dozens of entire teams working on platform issues.

How do you think they process your voice to figure out what you said?

I get privacy-conscious people wanting to avoid leaking personal information, but I don't get those same people wanting personally-relevant services without providing that information.

I understand that, although I don't want such services. Neither did my cousin and his whole family, who were shocked that this was uploaded when I've shown them. They didn't even know. That's probably also in the way Google enables such things, the focus is again data collection, not the user.

Just disable Google Now. Problem solved.