Prevent Google from Letting Third-Party Apps Read your Emails

You may have already heard in the news that Facebook gave app developers unprecedented access to some of Your most sensitive data and information online. But that’s not all – depending on how you utilize your Google account, you could be giving permission for third-party apps to read your e-mails.

This has something to do with what was supposedly a simple and convenient feature on your Google account. Instead of creating a new account, some online apps and services would let you log in using your Google account. Other developers would even create apps that integrate with your Google account to enhance their service functionality.

Simple Steps you can Do to Prevent Google’s Third-Party Apps from Reading your Emails 

When these apps integrate with your Google account, they would ask for a variety of permission access. In theory, each app should only ask for as many account permissions and utilize the data which come along with this to function properly. But what really happens here is that the user is requested to share a wide variety of account permissions; some of which, can even be used by developers to access our email, even if that clearly wasn’t what you signed up for right off the bat.

There are certain app integrations such as integrated email app platforms which naturally would need to access your emails to serve their functions. However, according to a Wall Street Journal report, there are some companies which make their engineers process users’ email and other relevant information to benefit their machine-learning marketing efforts.

In order to not fall victim to this type of marketing ploy, it is a good habit to always read through the term and conditions provided by an app which requests access to your account (if any). If there’s something that you’re not sure of, better opt out of the deal and spare your account from prying eyes and unprecedented access to your private and sensitive information online.    

How to Secure your Google Account

And while there are several ways for app developers to gain access to your account information; fortunately, there is a way for you to take charge of your account by doing the following steps:

Step 1: Since you can access the app permissions panel through a link, the instructions are generally the same for both desktop and mobile platforms. You can check which apps have access to your Google account and review what they can do by clicking here.

Step 2: Go through the apps that have some sort of access to your Google account. Does the trust that you place on the app and its developers match the level of permissions you’ve given the app? Do the permissions which the app received match the functions which the app carries out? If your answer is no, then you can modify the permission settings by clicking on the questionable app and then selecting the “Remove Access” option.

With the direction which Google is taking – integrating a variety of services (i.e. Youtube, Gmail) under one account, users should be extra careful as to how they manage their accounts because one wrong move could compromise your data online.