Google: Privacy May Be a Relative Concept
October 3, 2018
Google is concerned about its users privacy. It has options for users to turn off data sharing to protect their privacy. Google says it has these options…supposedly. Fortune shares how Google is breaking its privacy promises in the article, “Google Admits That It Lets Outside Services Share Your Gmail Data.” Google said last year that it would stop scanning users’ emails for keywords to use for targeted ads, but they lied.
When confronted with the deception, Google admitted to the subterfuge and also that they allow third parties to share user information with other third parties. The third parties are supposed to alert users how their information is being used. Does that happen? Probably not.
We learned:
“As Google explained in a blog post following the initial story, the kinds of third-party services that it allows to plug into Gmail include email clients, trip planners and customer relationship management systems. These services, which Google claims to thoroughly vet, typically read emails in an automated way, although humans do sometimes read them too. Users need to actively permit the apps to access their Gmail accounts, and they can revoke permission afterwards. However, Google’s blog post did not talk about the possibility of those third-party services sharing users’ data with other third parties.”
Users apparently had no idea that their data was being shared and Google did not inform them. Google’s privacy policy is broken and they might get away with it in the US, but Europe requires way more transparency. Once again this more proof that the almighty dollar trumps user protection.
Whitney Grace, October 3, 2018
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