1) Start by clicking on your account information in the upper right hand corner of the Gmail screen.
3) Next, click Sign-in & Security and scroll down to the “Apps with account access” section.
4) click the “Manage Apps”
5) Disable all the apps that spy on you
5a) Click on each app
5b) Click on "remove app"
Outsiders may be reading your Gmail: Here's how to stop them
Edward C. Baig, USA TODAY Published 2:17 p.m. ET July 3, 2018
A report published this week in the "Wall Street Journal" found that while Google itself indicated more than a year ago that it would stop reading your mail to target ads, hundreds of third-party software developers might be doing just that for marketing purposes. And in some cases, the Journal found, people, and not just computers, could be reading your Gmail.
According to the piece, software developers scan hundreds of millions of emails of users who sign up for email-based services, with Google doing little to police the practice.
There are basic steps you can take to help prevent such access.
Start by clicking on your account information in the upper right hand corner of the Gmail screen. As an alternative, type account.google.com in your browser.
Next, click Sign-in & Security and scroll down to the “Apps with account access” section.
This is where you can keep track of which apps or services you gave permission to access your account, and remove the ones you no longer use or trust.
To do that, click the “Manage Apps” link. Google has segregated apps into three main sections: Google’s own apps; the apps and sites you use to sign into Google; and the third-party apps with account access.
Google’s own apps include listings for the likes of Chromecast, Google Chrome or, as I discovered, an otherwise unnamed “Google Assistant Enabled Device.”
If you click on any of these items, you’ll see when access was given, what kind of access it has, and a “Remove Access” button.
In my account, the section with the apps and sites used to sign into Google included Amazon Alexa, OS X, Logitech, Best Buy and Priceline. Once again, I clicked to see when access was given and what kind of access each of the listings had, with the option to remove any of the apps.
And I did in fact remove access to another listing that showed up here, Hightail Spaces. I didn’t recall engaging the site or service, though it is possible I did—but was uncomfortable that Hightail could access basic account information, as well as the Google + email addresses and profiles that were visible to me.
Hightail also showed up on the list of “Third-party apps with account access,” along with Alexa, OS X and Super Mario Run. The Nintendo app had access to the Google Play Store but it didn't appear Mario was reading my email.
You may be cool with any of the apps that show up in these sections. But given how many developers apparently do scan your emails--and for that matter access other Google accounts--it’s a good idea to periodically make sure you’re comfortable with each and every one of them.
Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech Columnist @edbaig on Twitter
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