Now, Google has come out to say it will limit the type of use cases permitted for apps when they are granted access to Gmail by a user. The issue despite Google’s promise in 2017 that it would stop reading user messages, and was seen as a major privacy breach. Some of these app companies relied on machines to sift through the messages, while others had employees going through emails of users. The Wall Street Journal had said that third-party app developers were allowed to go through Gmail messages under the guise of offering users better products and services. In July this year it was reported that Google may have let third-party app developers read private messages in Gmail. Google data leak: What about Gmail and third-party app access? What data permissions will look like in the future. Each permission will have to separately approved by the user. So if an app wants access to your calendar and Drive documents, you can decide not to share one. The user will have control over which ones they do not wish to share. In the future, third-party “ apps will have to show you each requested permission, one at a time, within its own dialog box,” notes the blog. In the current settings when you give an app permission to access your Google account, all requested permissions are shown in a single screen and granted. So when you give an app access to your Google Account data in the future, there will be more control over what data you can choose to share. It looks like Google is tackling the issue and will launch more “granular” account permissions that will show in individual dialog boxes.

Google data leak: What about data shared with apps? What app permissions look like right now on Google accounts. “We’ve decided to focus on our enterprise efforts and will be launching new features purpose-built for businesses,” notes the blog post. Google also insists there is no “e vidence that any developer was aware of this bug, or abusing the API, and we found no evidence that any Profile data was misused,” according to the blog. Estimates from the company claim up to 500,000 Google+ accounts were potentially affected.Ĭlose to 438 applications may have used this API. Google admits that with this particular API, they only kept the log data for two weeks, which means they cannot confirm the user accounts impacted by this bug. (Image source: Reuters) Google data leak: How many users are impacted? Google did not report the data leak fearing scrutiny similar to Facebook and the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The company admits they found the bug in March 2018, but says they found no misuse of the data by app developers. The company has said that Google+ posts, messages, Google account data, phone numbers or G Suite content had remained safe. It insists that other data that users posted to Google+, or any other service, has not been leaked. Google claims this data is just Profile fields like name, email address, occupation, gender and age. Many users might not even remember they have a G+ account. While Google insists that 90 per cent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds, the problem is that everyone with a Gmail or Google account automatically has a G+ account.

Gmail data breach 2020