Google admits giving hundreds of firms access to your Gmail inbox

> "Before a non-Google app is able to access your data, we show a permissions screen that clearly shows the types of data the app can access and how it can use that data," Ms Frey said.

This sounds like the OAuth-based permission screen that Google has used for years. If so, the article is very poorly written. It’s not that hundreds of apps can access someone’s email, it’s that any apps the user has explicitly granted fine-grained access to can access their email.

The permission screen is very clear. It says “view and manage email” if the app requests that: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/services/au...

I find it difficult to believe that no one at Google pointed out to management that this behavior was a very serious invasion of privacy. High level Google execs must have known of such objections and either ignored or overruled them, which means Google is deliberately and consciously invading privacy.

I'm also shocked that given the public's and media's increased sensitivity to invasions of privacy by technology companies, as is evidenced by the outrage over Facebook's actions this year, this news wasn't leaked by someone at Google much, much earlier.