Think your Gmail is private? You should probably reconsider, as Google is reportedly scanning them messages Gmail for purchases, which it saves to your account.
In the week that passed to us, a user posted to Reddit what he discovered when opened the Google Shopping Accounts page. His page contained all the purchases made by Amazon and other online stores, even though they did not use Google Pay.
Inside the Purchases page, there were all the purchases you made online services such as Dominos, Steam, Amazon, Adidas and many more. It's worth mentioning once again that the Reddit user was not using Google Pay.
How can this happen; Very simple. Google analyzes Gmail messages to track purchases that it then exports and stores.
BleepingComputer contacted Google about the issue, and executives confirmed that the information was from Gmail messages.
They stated that this is to help their users easily find their data and that they do not use any of this information to show ads.
"Για να μπορείτε εύκολα να προβάλλετε και να παρακολουθείτε τις αγορές, τις κρατήσεις και τις συνδρομές σας σε ένα μέρος, δημιουργήσαμε έναν ιδιωτικό προορισμό που μπορείτε να δείτε μόνο εσείς. Μπορείτε να delete αυτές τις πληροφορίες ανά πάσα στιγμή. Δεν χρησιμοποιούμε καμία πληροφορία από τα μηνύματά σας στο Gmail για να σας προβάλλουμε διαφημίσεις και αυτό συμπεριλαμβάνει τις αποδείξεις και τις επιβεβαιώσεις ηλεκτρονικού ταχυδρομείου που εμφανίζονται στη σελίδα Purchases."
While they may not use this information to run ads, are they using them for something else? Google did not answer this question.
The company said we can delete this data at any time, but it did not say how difficult it is.
Instead of having a single setting that allows you to control how this data is stored, you must delete each purchase separately. (See the pictures above).
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