Google: Third-Party Apps Must Stop Scanning Gmail for Ad Targeting

Google is cutting off third-party developers from using admission to your Gmail account to serve up targeted ads.

The internet giant announced the new developer restrictions on Monday among ongoing scrutiny over how third-party Gmail add-ons can scan your inbox. The Wall Street Journal reported this summer that hundreds of exterior software makers tin can use this admission to expect through your unredacted emails for marketing or production-refinement purposes.

The new restrictions, which go into effect on January. 9, ban developers of Gmail add-ons from using your email data for any internet-based advert or handing it off to marketing firms. Data pulled from your inbox can only be used to power user-facing features or to improve them, the amended policy states.

Google is likewise limiting when human staffers from a third-party developer can read your electronic mail data; they tin only do so if they've received your consent, if they demand to investigate a software bug, or if they must comply with the constabulary. A developer can likewise allow a human staffer to read the email data, but only if it'south been aggregated and anonymized in majority with the emails from other users.

The net behemothic appear the new policy as it faces a privacy scandal akin to Facebook'south Cambridge Analytica controversy. Today, the Journal reports that Google initially decided non to reveal a data leak in Google+ that was discovered in March over fears the incident would invite regulatory scrutiny.

The visitor but decided to make the leak public today. In response, the cyberspace giant said it's shutting down the consumer version of Google+ and clamping downwards on third-party developer access to its platforms. "Going frontward, consumers will go more than fine-grained control over what account data they choose to share with each app," the company'due south VP of technology, Ben Smith, said in a web log post.

In addition to Gmail, Google will prevent mobile apps from request permission to read call logs and SMS data from your Android phones. Going forward, only the default app you've selected to make phone calls and texts volition be able to do so.

Google's decision to limit API access to the visitor's products is a win for privacy advocates, but it does come at the expense of 3rd-party developers. The APIs accept helped software makers build thousands of apps for Gmail, Chrome, and Android, but security researchers have warned that this aforementioned API access tin likewise be abused by sneaky marketing firms or hackers to collect your individual information without your knowledge.

"The fact that API security is flight under the radar and not being adequately addressed should exist a reddish flag," Rami Essaid, co-founder of the security house Distil Networks, said in an electronic mail.

Google's new restrictions will force third-political party developers to jump through more hoops when information technology comes to Gmail app evolution. In the futurity, Gmail add together-ons will have ask for permission to access your inbox, at "regular intervals."

Developers volition too need to pay upwardly. Google's new policy demands that all Gmail apps go through a third-party security assessment, which the visitor said may saddle developers with a $15,000 to $75,000 fee, depending on the size and complexity of the application.

"To go along user data safe, we are requiring apps to demonstrate a minimum level of capability in handling data securely and deleting user information upon user request," Google said in justifying the security assessment.

Google plans on reviewing all third-party apps that need the all-encompassing Gmail access starting on Jan. nine. If a review is not submitted by Feb. fifteen, and so Google will begin rolling back what the app tin access from Gmail inbox users later that month.

To cheque what 3rd-party apps accept admission to your Gmail account, you lot can use Google's security checkup tool.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/news/29818/google-third-party-apps-must-stop-scanning-gmail-for-ad-targeting

Posted by: alexanderhaverm.blogspot.com

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