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According to a letter published Thursday, Google is defending its policy to allow third-party applications to access and share data from Gmail accounts.
Gmail, which has more than 1.4 billion users worldwide, enables third-party developers to integrate services into their messaging platform, such as travel planners and custom relationship management systems.
"Developers can share data with third parties as long as they are transparent with users about how they use the data," said Susan Molinari, vice president of public policy and government affairs for the Americas. Google. was obtained by CNNMoney.
Google also makes "the privacy policy easily accessible to users before deciding to grant access," she said. Users can view or delete access to the application on their Google Account page or choose not to download the application.
Last year, Google (GOOG) has stopped analyzing Gmail account emails for advertising purposes. In the letter, Molinari also noted that no human employees read the users' Gmail service, except in "very specific cases where they ask us for and give us their consent" or for security purposes, such as abuses.
The letter was sent in July to lawmakers, including Senator John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee.
The company noted in the letter that it had put in place a process to identify applications that are inaccurate or not transparent about how personal data is used. Google claims to be able to suspend these applications in the "majority of cases" before being able to access the data. However, it is unclear how many malicious apps have been removed.
The letter comes as online privacy is of growing concern and the government is monitoring technology companies more closely.
The Senate Committee on Commerce should question Google, Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), AT & T (T), Communication Charter (CHTR) and Twitter (tWTR) Wednesday, September 26, on guarantees for the confidentiality of consumer data. (AT & T is the parent company of CNNMoney).
In July, the Wall Street Journal reported that software developers were scanning hundreds of millions of emails from Gmail users who had subscribed to email services such as route tools. of travel.
In response to this report, Google has published an article about the privacy and security of Gmail. When asked on Thursday for other comments, a Google spokesman referred CNNMoney to this article.
The company said on the blog that non-Google apps had to undergo a review process before they could access users' Gmail messages. For example, there is an automated and manual review of the developer, testing the application and an evaluation of its privacy policy and its home page to determine if it is legit. The blog post also encouraged users to view the permissions screen before allowing non-Google applications to access the data.
CNNMoney (New York) First published on September 20, 2018: 5:32 PM ET
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