By John D. McKinnon and Douglas MacMillan
WASHINGTON -- Google Inc. told lawmakers it continues to allow
other companies to scan and share data from Gmail accounts,
responding to questions raised on Capitol Hill about privacy and
potential misuse of the information contained in users' emails.
In a letter to senators, a top Google official said the company
allows app developers to scan Gmail accounts, even though Google
itself stopped the practice for the purpose of ad targeting last
year. The company also disclosed that app developers generally are
free to share the data with others, as long as Google determines
that their privacy policies adequately disclose potential uses.
"Developers may share data with third parties so long as they
are transparent with the users about how they are using the data,"
Susan Molinari, the company's vice president for public policy and
government affairs for the Americas, wrote in the letter. She added
that the company, a unit of Alphabet Inc., makes sure the relevant
privacy policy is "easily accessible to users to review before
deciding whether to grant access."
Using software tools provided by Gmail and other email services,
outside app developers can access information about what products
people buy, where they travel and which friends and colleagues they
interact with the most. In some cases, employees at these app
companies have read people's actual emails in order to improve
their software algorithms.
Google's letter, received by lawmakers in July, came in response
to written questions from several lawmakers, including Commerce
Committee Chairman John Thune (R., S.D.), following a Wall Street
Journal report detailing how app developers frequently gain access
to the contents of users' Gmail accounts.
Google's letter likely will provide fodder for what could be a
contentious Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday on data privacy
practices of other internet platforms, as well as some
telecommunications firms.
In the letter, the company outlined the steps it takes to vet
third-party email apps, including manually reviewing privacy
policies and using computer tools to detect any significant changes
to the behavior of the apps.
A Google spokesman said the company has no comment beyond the
letter it provided to Congress.
Lawmakers have expressed concerns about tech giants including
Google, Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. on a range of issues such as
privacy and manipulation by foreign actors. In particular, Facebook
has come in for tough criticism following disclosures that data of
millions of its users found its way to Cambridge Analytica, a data
firm that worked for President Trump's 2016 campaign.
The latest disclosure echoes recent concerns about software
developers sharing data from users of Facebook, and shows that "the
privacy policy model is simply broken beyond repair," said Marc
Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center,
a nonprofit research group. "There is simply no way that Gmail
users could imagine that their personal data would be transferred
to third parties."
Google and other email providers have permitted hundreds of
third-party apps to collect data with the permission of users. They
often perform useful tasks, like tracking shopping receipts and
planning travel itineraries, by analyzing the billions of emails
that arrive in inboxes every day.
Some of those apps share email data with partners, who use it to
understand the behavior of users and improve their ability to
target ads to them. When users sign up to Earny, a tool that
compares receipts in inboxes to prices across the web, their
inboxes are also scanned by the computers of a different company,
Return Path Inc., which collects data for marketers.
Google's statement to Congress suggests that the company is fine
with arrangements like these, as long as Earny tells users what is
happening with their data. Return Path and Earny have both said
they give users clear notice about the email monitoring. Earny's
privacy policy states that Return Path would "have access to your
information and will be permitted to use that information according
to their own privacy policy."
Google didn't address some questions in the senators' letter,
including a request to list all of the times Google has suspended
an email app for not complying with its rules, and a list of
detailed instances in which an app has shared data with a third
party.
The company has drawn criticism from members of Congress on both
sides of the aisle, who say the company has failed to address their
questions. Google parent Alphabet declined to send Chief Executive
Larry Page to appear at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing
earlier this month, where lawmakers grilled Facebook Chief
Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey about
issues including Russian meddling, online privacy and political
bias on tech platforms.
Next Wednesday's Commerce Committee hearing will feature privacy
officials from Google as well as Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc.,
Twitter, AT&T Inc. and Charter Communications Inc.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the Intelligence Committee's top
Democrat, recently asked Google to explain why it's developing a
censored search engine for China. He said the company's response
failed to provide "any information" about the plan.
"I am truly disappointed with Google's response," Sen. Warner
said in a statement earlier this month. "I believe Google should be
more up front about this fundamental issue of public
accountability."
Write to John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com and Douglas
MacMillan at douglas.macmillan@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 20, 2018 12:42 ET (16:42 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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