According to Google, no one is able to read your Gmail without your permission. And while that may be true, things aren't that simple.
Following a Wall Street Journal report (published Monday) that detailed how developers can read your Gmail emails, Google responded on Tuesday with a blog postoutlining the measures it's taking to ensure your security and privacy on the service.
The post, signed by Suzanne Frey, Director of Security, Confidentiality, and Privacy at Google Cloud, admits that Google allows other developers to access Gmail messages, but only if you have given them permission and only after they pass a strict review of the procedures they follow.
The WSJ report, however, claims that Google “does very little to control these developers,” who in some cases can indeed read users’ emails. According to the report, employees of a company called Return Path read about 8,000 user emails two years ago to help train its software.
The practice of sharing data with other companies became known after it was revealed that Facebook was letting many third-party apps collect huge amounts of user data for their own purposes.
Google has been a bit more cautious than Facebook when it comes to privacy. For example, the company stopped using the content of its Gmail users' emails to target ads in 2017.
But if you're not careful about who you grant permissions to for Gmail, your emails could theoretically fall into the wrong hands. To check which third-party apps you've allowed to access your Gmail, go to myaccount.google.com and click "Apps with account access."
In the post, Frey also points out that “no one at Google reads your Gmail.” However, there are exceptions to this rule. According to the company, these include “very specific cases, when you ask us to do so yourself and give your consent, or where it is necessary for security reasons, such as investigating a bug or abuse.”.
