Through some third-party applications, developers have been able to read the contents of your e-mails, whether they have been sent or received.
A few months ago, Gmail was talking about him because of his important redesign, which was then about both designing and adding some features. If users can now take advantage of an email like new, it is a much less appreciable point, which Google has then well kept to mention.
According to an article published on July 2 by the Wall Street Journal, developers were able to read your emails in peace. The American newspaper explains that "hundreds of third-party developers [could] read messages from millions of Gmail users." Access to this content that is supposed to be private could be made possible thanks to the famous message that asks users to accept that a third-party application can use a Gmail account when connecting. By validating this request, a user authorizes the third-party company to access read, but also delete, send or organize its e-mails. This means that these third-party applications have explicitly requested and received the explicit consent of the user concerned before they can comply with this practice.
This same subject had been approached about a year ago, when Google had indicated that it would no longer use the content of your e-mails for advertising purposes. Until that date, they were read in order for their content to be used for targeted advertising. Nevertheless, users knew that their e-mails were read by robots, but not by human users. Once again, this news raises the question of the user's consent, a point that some companies seem to take lightly. If users gave their access to third-party services, they certainly did not realize that it meant that their emails could be read by humans.
It's certainly this point makes the news different from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which had hit Facebook full of whip a few months ago. Where the data extracted from the social network had been sold to the company so that it could create very precise profiles, Google still stands on the thread since the practice is not illegal.
To get to know the companies that have access to your e-mails and to remove their authorization, you must first go to their Google account, then click on "Applications having access to the account", which is in the category "Connection and Security".
By clicking on "Manage applications," You can view the list of third-party entities that have access to the information mentioned by the U.S. journal, and return to the original consent.
