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What an awful choice of a title. (Used to be something like "New Google policy charges devs $15k to access Gmail API") Also, this isn't a bad move AFAICT (tigh

What an awful choice of a title. (Used to be something like "New Google policy charges devs $15k to access Gmail API") Also, this isn't a bad move AFAICT (tightening policies and access to a very important API), but it's evidently a reaction to the backlash from that WSJ "exposé" about the scandalous fact that email providers allow third parties to read/manage your inbox... if you give the third parties permissions and access tokens. That was just dirty reporting and intentionally misleading average readers--the comments on that article were all akin to "I knew Google was reading my emails!". And I don't see this change mattering much to those people.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
AFAIR that WSJ exposé is recent; if so, this is not a reaction to this - last year, I've been working on some code integrating with GMail, and I remember encountering the announcement of this change 6+ months ago. EDIT: at least I think I do. I tried to find a reference to this in my project note, to confirm the timestamp, but I failed. So it could be I've seen it in October 2018, as 'Ivoirians pointed out.
- Ivoirians 8y ago
  Of course, I can't say for certain this is a reaction, but it seems to me like they're addressing the actual meat of the original article--third party apps can do whatever they want with your emails once they have the keys, like let their employees read through them. The issue was that the policies dictating how apps could use that access didn't seem to have much teeth; thus, the new security review. Also, this announcement says it first came out in October 2018, while the WSJ article came out in July 2018?
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    > Also, this announcement says it first came out in October 2018, while the WSJ article came out in July 2018? I tried to confirm the date I saw this in my project notes, and failed, so maybe I indeed saw it in October. If so, and if WSJ report came out months earlier, then maybe it is indeed a reaction.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

AFAIR that WSJ exposé is recent; if so, this is not a reaction to this - last year, I've been working on some code integrating with GMail, and I remember encountering the announcement of this change 6+ months ago. EDIT: at least I think I do. I tried to find a reference to this in my project note, to confirm the timestamp, but I failed. So it could be I've seen it in October 2018, as 'Ivoirians pointed out.

Ivoirians 8y ago
Of course, I can't say for certain this is a reaction, but it seems to me like they're addressing the actual meat of the original article--third party apps can do whatever they want with your emails once they have the keys, like let their employees read through them. The issue was that the policies dictating how apps could use that access didn't seem to have much teeth; thus, the new security review. Also, this announcement says it first came out in October 2018, while the WSJ article came out in July 2018?
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > Also, this announcement says it first came out in October 2018, while the WSJ article came out in July 2018? I tried to confirm the date I saw this in my project notes, and failed, so maybe I indeed saw it in October. If so, and if WSJ report came out months earlier, then maybe it is indeed a reaction.