Third-party Apps can now Read your Email just as They can Read your SMS and Call Logs

Gmail’s access settings allow third-party app developers and data companies to see people’s emails and private details

According to a report from Wall Street Journal, Google allows third-party app developers to scan through Gmail accounts.

Gmail’s access settings allow third-party app developers and data companies to see people’s emails and private details, including recipient and messages. Although these apps do require user consent before accessing their email, it hasn’t been made very clear by Google that the consent would allow humans and not just machines to access the emails.  

The report further added that email data collectors use software to scan millions of messages a day, looking for clues about consumers that they can sell to marketers, hedge funds and other businesses,

Google has commented on the report saying that they provide access with users' consent, and only to those third-party developers who have verified their identity, who included a clause about email monitoring in their privacy policy, and who are asking for data that is justified for the app's services. Besides this, there are some developers have applied for access to Gmail, but have not been granted those permissions.

Although there is no evidence that third-party developers have misused or leaked any critical data, just being able to view and read private emails puts the security of users in great danger. 



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