The Nudging feature in Gmail reminds you to follow up or reply to messages. (Photo: Google)

Do you know who is reading your Gmail? Do you know how to stop those who should not have access to such messages?

A report published this week in the "Wall Street Journal" revealed that Google itself had indicated more than a year ago By reading your mail to target ads, hundreds of developers third-party software could do this for marketing purposes. And in some cases, the newspaper found that people, not just computers, could read your Gmail.

According to the document, software developers analyze hundreds of millions of emails from users who sign up for email services. Google does little to control the practice.

You can take basic steps to prevent this access.

Start by clicking on your account information in the upper right corner of the Gmail screen. As an alternative, type account.google.com in your browser.

Then, click Sign In and Security and scroll down to the "Applications with Account Access" section. It is here that you can track the applications or services you have authorized to access your account and delete the ones you no longer use or trust.

To do this, click on the "Manage Applications" link. Google has separated apps into three main sections: Google's own apps; The apps and sites you use to sign in to Google and third-party applications with account access.

Google's own apps include lists of Chromecast, Google Chrome or, as I discovered, a "Google Assistant-enabled device".

If you click on these items, you will see when access has been given, what type of access, and a "delete access" button.

In my account, the section with applications and sites used to connect to Google included Amazon Alexa, OS X, Logitech, Best Buy and Priceline. Again, I clicked to see when access was given and what type of access had each list, with the ability to remove one of the applications.

And I actually deleted access to another list that appeared here, Hightail Spaces. I did not recall having used the site or service, even though it was possible, but I was uncomfortable that Hightail could access the basic account information, as well Visible e-mail addresses and Google + profiles.

Hightail also appeared on the list of "third-party applications with account access", with Alexa, OS X and Super Mario Run. The Nintendo app had access to the Google Play Store but it did not seem like Mario was reading my email.

You can be cool with any of the applications that appear in these sections. But given the number of developers who seemingly analyze your emails – and from elsewhere are accessing other Google accounts – it's a good idea to periodically make sure you're there. with each one of them.

[email protected]; Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech Chronicler @edbaig on Twitter

Read or Share this Story: https://usat.ly/2z7FKHB