Tech’s ‘Dirty Secret’: The App Developers Sifting Through Your Gmail

Google said in 2017 it would stop its computers from scanning the inboxes of Gmail users for information to personalize advertisements, saying it wanted users to “remain confident that Google will keep privacy and security paramount.” But the internet giant continues to let hundreds of outside software developers scan the inboxes of millions of Gmail users who signed up for email-based services offering shopping price comparisons, automated travel-itinerary planners or other tools. Google does little to police those developers, who train their computers—and, in some cases, employees—to read their users’ emails. Letting employees read user emails has become “common practice” for companies that collect this type of data, says Thede Loder, the former chief technology officer at eDataSource Inc. He says engineers at eDataSource occasionally reviewed emails when building and improving software algorithms. “Some people might consider that to be a dirty secret,” says Loder. “It’s kind of reality.”