Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Google steals photos from your Android phone

Yesterday Google invaded my privacy. The search giant added new spayware function - Instant Upload - to their social network Google+. They enabled that spyware by default. And Instant Upload silently uploaded photos from my android phone to Google+ without asking my permission!!! Google had stolen my photos!!! I realized that something evil is going on due to small notification on my phone (which many people probably will ignore or dismiss without reading).
All uploaded photos become private and not shared to general public. But still Google took them from me and can now share with their big corporate friends or US government which is unacceptable!
Obviously I deleted all those photos from Google+ and turned Instant Upload off immediately. But how can I be sure that Google did not left the copies on their servers?
What if the photos Google had stolen were intimate?
I hope that EU commission will investigate this issue and fine Google appropriately.

P.S. To turn off Instant Upload launch your "Goggle Settings" app (not "Settings"!), go to "Google+" there and uncheck "Instant Upload".

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I signed up for Google+ unsure of just how it worked but read every step of the way how to disable instant uploads. When I found Google+ was automatically backing up my personal photos I went into my account, deleted them all and changed ALL my settings to disable automatic backups so I could choose what to share with just Google+ itself. A month or two later I login to find every picture I deleted off of Google+ automatically backed up AGAIN even some photos I chose to delete from my phone itself!! Thinking that I messed up, I went into my account settings and found my automatic back ups were disabled still! So even though I changed my settings, Google+ was stealing my photos off of my phone and automatically backing them up WITHOUT my permission!! They give you the option to change your settings and they don't even work!!!...and although Ive permanently deleted my account I'm positive that my pictures are on their servers. This is the scariest peice of spy software I've ever seen in my life. What a genius way to spy into the lives of Google users around the world. Looks like I will be buying a digital camera now...even with a deleted Google+ account, I no longer feel safe taking pictures on my own phone. All those dummies that says "your Google+ account is private" obviously forgets that ANYONE that works at Google corp. can access your info/pictures, and that ANYTHING uploaded to the internet is NEVER private.

thatguypark said...

Completely agree. People say that Google asks you, but I was never asked or told until I too got the notification that the photos had been uploaded.

Not only was that extra bandwidth it just wasted, but there was NOTHING to say what had happened to them or if they had been kept private or note.

Lots of people say "it's easy" just turn off the feature......yeah a little too late after my phone had been raped and pillaged.

And you're right; what if I had something intimate between myself and my partner.

Unknown said...

To elaborate on this conversation further... two years ago when I purchased I new Verizon Android, I was forced to sign up for Google backup for my contacts and photos. For two years all of my pictures were stored online.

I bought a new phone from T Mobile 3 weeks ago and was assured that all of my photos and contacts would transfer over on gmail. They never did.

I have lost thousands of images and hundreds of contacts. I contacted Google (after Verizon and T Mobile) and I asked for my information to be preserved and returned.

I was told by google that I would have to sue them to get it back. Seriously, they didn't even offer me any other options. Never been SO pissed!

BIRTHCONTROL/CONTRACEPTIONS said...

My photos were also gone. A msg from Google+ said "don't worry" old photo app is no longer available, your photos are safely awaiting you once you download our new updated app" Sad Situation. I Google to find I am apparently not only one this happened to. :-(