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Producers of applications using Gmail can read mail from millions of subscribers to the service, thus obtaining much information about their contacts and their habits. Spread for some time, the practice is not known to many users, as recently explained Wall Street Journal in a long article dedicated to third-party applications for Gmail, directed by developers other than Google. These applications require the explicit permission of users before they can access their emails, but few know how to give others unconditional access to their online correspondence.
In addition to the official Gmail app to read the mail (for example on smartphone) there are dozens of other non-Google apps that can be used to view the inbox, or for manage appointments in the calendar or even the list of contacts. Many of these applications are very popular and run by famous brands such as Microsoft (via Office system) and Salesforce, but there are dozens of smaller and lesser-known ones.
Third-party applications of this type show a screen that informs about the collection of data, to which you must give your explicit consent to continue. The problem is that the indication on the way and the use of the information collected is not very clear: the details are often buried in long documents on the conditions of use, which does not read almost no one before giving consent.
Wall Street Journal has maintained with the heads of Return Path and Edison Software, two companies that offer applications for managing their e- emails with Gmail. Both companies confirmed that they had access to thousands of accounts, whose developers saw and used the messages to improve the data management algorithms. Both Return Path and Edison Software have specified that e-mail monitoring is clearly indicated in their privacy terms, but their documentation does not explicitly refer to the possibility for a human to see the messages.
Google explains to The Verge that the ability to request users to access Gmail accounts is provided only to selected developers, who then have the obligation to seek the explicit consent of users. The selection system consists of several steps: the company must make explicit ownership of the application, the terms of confidentiality must mention the monitoring of emails and it must be shown that the collection of data is inevitable so that the Application works. Google has stated that it has denied the necessary permissions to different companies, but has not provided more details.
To date, there is no known case where third-party developers have exploited their access privileges to Gmail accounts to collect data for purposes different from those of their services, but the simple The fact that emails are relatively easily accessible by their employees raises many privacy issues. Gmail is one of the most used email services in the world and has already been criticized for its lack of attention to users' privacy. The system has badyzed the content of emails to provide more relevant ads in Gmail, a practice that Google has abandoned for some time. The possibility of unauthorized use of user data by other developers, however, can not be totally ruled out and, in part, recalls the case of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, which has given rise to new concerns. on the protection of privacy online. 19659002] Google still gives you the ability to monitor which apps have access to your account. From this page you can see who accesses and how to your information, with the possibility to revoke permissions for each application.
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