Senate Commerce Members Claim Gmail Users Don’t Understand Policies

Consumers likely don’t fully understand Google’s policies that allegedly allowed employees and computers to read Gmail users’ emails, Senate Commerce Committee members wrote the CEO of the platform's parent company Tuesday. Citing a July 2 report from the Wall Street Journal, Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., Sens. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., asked Alphabet CEO Larry Page for Google privacy policy details. Though users consent to third-party access to Gmail data, “the full scope of the use of email content and the ease with which developer employees may be able to read personal emails are likely not well understood by most consumers,” they wrote. Google didn’t comment.