Google allows third-party app developers to read messages from millions of Gmail users

Google allows hundreds of third-party app developers to view the inbox of millions of Gmail users subscribing to email-based services, such as price comparisons, planners, and more. automated robbery or other tools. Which means that Google does not do much to monitor and control the developers and employees who train and schedule their devices to prevent them from reading user emails, according to the Wall Street Journal report.

This comes after Google announced last year that it would prevent its systems from badyzing Gmail inboxes so that users could get information to personalize the ads, saying that They wanted users to remain confident that Google would maintain the confidentiality of their data.

A company, Return Path, compiled data for marketers by checking the inboxes of over 2 million people who subscribed to a free application using Gmail or Yahoo mail. Computers typically scan and badyze about 100 million e-mail daily. At one point, in about two years, Return Path employees read about 8000 e-mail to help train business software.

In another case, Edison Software, one of Jemel's developers, who develops an application to read and organize e-mail, has successfully reviewed the e-mail messages of hundreds of users to create a new feature. "Telling employees to read user emails is a common practice for companies that collect this type of data," said Theodore Lauder, former chief technology officer at eDataSource. Build and Enhance Software Algorithms. "

Return Path and Addison did not specifically ask users if they could read their emails. Both companies claim that the practice is covered by their contracts. They use strict protocols for employees who read e-mail messages. "EDataSource says it has previously allowed staff to read some data by e-mail, but that it has recently discontinued the practice to better protect the privacy of users.

Google has stated that this feature is only offered to third-party application developers and that Google employees only read e-mail messages in very specific cases where we need a user approval or when we need security checks. investigation of dysfunctions or abuses. "

This report was designed to test the confidentiality of e-mail data during interviews with more than twenty current and former employees of companies developed for e-mail applications and e-mail applications. Data Companies: The Freedom of Interaction of Third-Party Developers with User Data Shows How Google and Other Technology Giants Encouraged Efforts to Strengthen Confidentiality While Leaving Others Open to Different Practices

This is what Facebook has offered to the biggest data leak that has plagued so far, allowing third-party application developers to have access to data from the user for years.The practice, which Facebook suspended in 2015 with a scandal involving the sale of tens of millions of data to a research firm related to the presidential campaign Trump in 2016 sparked renewed attention from lawmakers and regulators in the United States and Europe. Protect Internet businesses for user information.

How Third-Party Application Developers See Your Email Data:

Email Aggregators Use a Program to Analyze Millions of Messages Per Day, Searching for Consumer Data They can sell to traders and other businesses. , Which includes recipient email addresses, while names and e-mail addresses exchanged with code numbers are badociated with demographic information such as age and location, and tracking hours of hours. Opening messages This means that it is the work of a survey of names, numbers, addresses, and add them to databases, such as applications that help users to organize their contacts.

Nothing indicates that Return Path, Edison and other Gmail mail modules misused the data in this way. However, privacy advocates and many technology executives claim that opening access to email data could lead to significant data leakage risks.

For companies wishing to obtain data for marketing and other purposes, the display of email data is attractive because it contains shopping dates, flight itineraries, financial records and personal contacts. Data collection companies generally use free applications and services without mentioning the data they collect and what they do clearly.

Gmail has its own status of the world's most popular email service, with a user base of 1945,9004 users . Nearly two-thirds of all active mail users have a Gmail account in the world and Gmail has more users than its 25 email providers. Data on access to other email services with Gmail, including those from Microsoft and Verizon Communications subsidiary, which acquired the pioneer of Yahoo's email. These are the largest e-mail providers according to comScore.

Verizon commented: "Access to email data is case-by-case and requires explicit approval from the user."

A Microsoft spokeswoman said, "The company is committed to protecting customer data without the consent of users, provides guidance on how data is used and usable, and privacy policies do not allow access to user data. .

Although the Google Developer Agreement prohibits the posting of private user data to anyone without the express consent of that user, its policies also prohibit developers of applications from having access to the user's personal information. make permanent copies of user data and store them in a database. But the developers say Google does little to implement these policies. "I have not seen any evidence of a human review by Google employees, nor the fact that Office staff has ever checked his email accounts with his own eyes," he said. Zvi Band, co-founder of Contactwise.

Google said it was manually reviewing every developer or application requesting access to Gmail data. The company verifies the sender's domain name in order to search for anyone with a history of misuse of Google's rules, and reads the privacy rules to make sure they are clear. "If we are faced with areas where revelations and practices are unclear, Google takes quick action with the developer," said a company spokesman.

Google claims that it allows any user to revoke access to applications at any time. Gmail users can also restrict access to specific email applications for employees in their organization, to ensure that only applications that are tested and approved by the organization are used.

Google has been dealing with privacy issues since launching its Gmail service in 2004. The company's software has scanned emails and sold ads in a special section of the most important messages in mailboxes. Mailbox. That year, 31 groups of privacy groups and consumers sent a message to Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, saying the practice "violates the implicit trust of the messaging service provider." Google responded that other email providers were already using their servers to check for spam protection and hackers in emails, and that the ad serving could offset the cost of the free service.

Google also faced between 2010 and 2016 at least three lawsuits filed by students using Google Apps as well as a wider group of email users who accused them of violating federal laws on wiretapping. Google has stated in its legal defense that Gmail's privacy policy states that "no one reads your email to target you with advertisements or related information without your consent." Google has settled one of the cases and the other two have been rejected.

In 2014, Google declared that it would stop checking Gmail mailboxes for users belonging to students, businesses, and government users. Last June, Google announced that it would start serving ads based on user-defined settings, which means that Gmail accounts will not be used or badyzed for ads.