Facebook has dominated the news of late around its user privacy transgressions. First the drama swirling around Cambridge Analytica, and just recently, news broke that the company had shared a wealth of its users’ private information with other tech giants like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Samsung, among others.
These findings have both consumers and businesses alike on edge. But, Facebook is far from the only company that consumers should be wary of when it comes to their privacy and the security of their data.
Google’s intrusion into its users’ privacy extends even beyond Facebook’s. While Google does allow its Gmail users to opt out of ad targeting, it is still scanning user emails, storing them on its servers and scraping them for data. This also makes Gmail incredibly vulnerable from a security perspective – in short, if Google can access your email, so can hackers.
Google’s privacy and security transgressions
Google’s intrusion into privacy extends to highly personal information contained in user emails on its Gmail service. Consumers are seemingly blissfully unaware that Google scans their emails and scrapes them for data.
For example, imagine if the U.S. post office opened every piece of mail we receive and then scanned it for information to sell to advertisers? Or what if mobile operators scanned all of their users’ calls or text messages for keywords in order to target ads? Scary, isn’t it?
Not only is Google intruding on users’ privacy, but it also makes services like Gmail more vulnerable from a security perspective. That’s because Google stores user emails on its servers with full ability to access and process them. Which means, if someone hacked into the system, your sensitive emails and information would be up for grabs. Much like Yahoo’s massive breach in which more than 3 billion accounts were compromised by just a handful of hackers, Google’s email is equally susceptible.
A more secure way forward
Security experts recommend that the only way to protect user privacy and information security, especially in sensitive applications like email and cloud file sharing services, is to encrypt it on user devices and not allow providers like Google to have any access to personal data. Such end-to-end encrypted email and file sharing services, like our PreVeil for email and PreVeil Drive, are beneficial to both businesses and consumers, and are incredibly easy to use – a key ingredient to successful implementation, particularly across enterprises.
Consumers and business should know that there are end-to-end encrypted and easy-to-use email and file sharing services available today. Whether you’re an individual or part of a company, you deserve the right to privacy from your email or file sharing provider.
Google take note: end-to-end encryption should be used for every application, across the enterprise, especially when it comes to the private and sensitive data shared by both consumers and businesses.