In what feels like a game of “Which Site Will Violate Our Privacy More This Week?,” Google remains consistent in their issues with user privacy and released an inconspicuous email to users to let them know that some Google Photos users might have had their private videos sent to strangers.
Related: Why I’m switching from Chrome to Firefox. Stat.
Specifically, it’s Google’s Takeout service, between November 21st and November 25th, in which a “technical issue” ended up with these private videos being shared. And while apparently it was only .01% of users, keep in mind that Google Photos has over 1 billion users, so it’s not really like four people. It’s a whole lot people, actually. All of which don’t know if it was their videos that got shared or not.
So what can you do? Welp, a first start is to get your photos off Google Photos. But once you download them, then what? You could consider cloud services like DropBox or iCloud (for you Apple users), or just storing them on your computer or thumb drive (remember those)? And while you’re at it, you might want to reconsider Chrome. This is not the first time Google is being called out for their privacy issues, and it will most likely not be the last.
Via The Verge; Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash
