
Google admits giving hundreds of firms access to your Gmail inbox - pmoriarty
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-gmail-data-sharing-email-inbox-privacy-scandal-a8548941.html
======
troydavis
> "Before a non-Google app is able to access your data, we show a permissions
> screen that clearly shows the types of data the app can access and how it
> can use that data," Ms Frey said.

This sounds like the OAuth-based permission screen that Google has used for
years. If so, the article is very poorly written. It’s not that hundreds of
apps can access someone’s email, it’s that any apps the user has explicitly
granted fine-grained access to can access their email.

The permission screen is very clear. It says “view and manage email” if the
app requests that: [https://developers.google.com/apps-
script/guides/services/au...](https://developers.google.com/apps-
script/guides/services/authorization)

------
pmoriarty
I find it difficult to believe that no one at Google pointed out to management
that this behavior was a very serious invasion of privacy. High level Google
execs must have known of such objections and either ignored or overruled them,
which means Google is deliberately and consciously invading privacy.

I'm also shocked that given the public's and media's increased sensitivity to
invasions of privacy by technology companies, as is evidenced by the outrage
over Facebook's actions this year, this news wasn't leaked by someone at
Google much, much earlier.

~~~
someonelse17
Leak what? It says so in the permission screen when a user _chooses_ to grant
access.

~~~
pmoriarty
The user may give permission to an app to access to their inbox, but not to
share their emails with others or even let the app's developers read it.

What's given to the app should stay within the app.

~~~
someonelse17
I also would like to have my cake and eat it.

