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Google bug accidentally shares users' private videos with strangers

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By Alan Friedman

Published: Feb 04, 2020, 6:11 PM

Google bug accidentally shares users' private videos with strangers

In this day and age of privacy concerns, Google just committed a major faux pas. Between November 21st and November 25th of last year, the "Download your data" service for the Google Photos app suffered a major issue. Those who asked Google to export and download pictures and videos from the Photos app might have been affected by Google's "my bad." Because of a bug, the company accidentally sent some videos to archives unrelated to the person who hosted the video in the Google Photos app. In other words, Google was accidentally disseminating users' videos to perfect strangers.

According to The Verge, those affected by this mistake received a message from Google that explained what happened. It also revealed that not only might their videos end up in strangers' archives, but they might also find videos from strangers posted in their own archives. There was some good news in the missive as Google wrote, "The underlying issue has been identified and resolved. We recommend you perform another export of your content and delete your prior export at this time."

In a statement to 9to5Google, Google apologized and basically repeated what it said in the message it sent. "We are notifying people about a bug that may have affected users who used Google Takeout to export their Google Photos content between November 21 and November 25. These users may have received either an incomplete archive, or videos — not photos — that were not theirs. We fixed the underlying issue and have conducted an in-depth analysis to help prevent this from ever happening again. We are very sorry this happened."

Google alerts affected Google Photos app users that strangers might own a copy of the video they shot

There really isn't anything that you can do if your videos ended up being viewed by people you don't know, except hope that certain clips you took don't win you an AVN award.

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Alan, an ardent smartphone enthusiast and a veteran writer at PhoneArena since 2009, has witnessed and chronicled the transformative years of mobile technology. Owning iconic phones from the original iPhone to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, he has seen smartphones evolve into a global phenomenon. Beyond smartphones, Alan has covered the emergence of tablets, smartwatches, and smart speakers.

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