Pokemon GO Gives Nintendo Access to Users’ Google Accounts


This is disturbing enough, but Pokemon GO’s potential for malfeasance goes far beyond corporations snooping through users’ private information. Reports claim that Nintendo and other parties can even send emails using gamers’ addresses, a development that will encourage hackers to try and break into the app to gain access to hapless users’ data:

“It’s a potentially disastrous security risk: just one hack or leak of user information would mean compromises in Google information for a group of people about as large as the number of active daily users for Twitter on Android.

Even if the data isn’t hacked, these two companies are already getting access to (and the ability to edit) your info—pictures, emails, documents—basically everything they could ever want, except a few key abilities like using Google Wallet, changing your password, or deleting your account).

Whether they’re using those abilities or not is an entirely separate matter, but unless Niantic wants to help you build spreadsheets to keep track of your Pokémon, and email your friends to brag about it, this is completely unwarranted access.

However, developer Niantic clarified to Business Insider that Pokémon Go requesting this kind of broad access to players’ Google accounts wasn’t intentional, and added it was never used to look at players’ account information, other than their email address (not emails themselves) and user ID. The company further explained the issue was a bug on the iOS version of Pokémon Go, and said it will be fixed in an upcoming update.”

Source: Popular Science



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