Google Leak shows that privacy issues have been kept internal for years


A Google leak reported on Monday by 404 Media revealed six years of privacy and security issues Google kept quiet about — including an accidental Google contractor flowing a Nintendo game release.

The media obtained the internal database from an anonymous source and reported that Google confirmed aspects of the leak.

“At Google, employees can quickly raise potential product issues for review by relevant teams,” Google told 404 Media in a statement. “The reports received by 404 are from more than six years ago and are examples of these flags – all have been reviewed and resolved at that time.”

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The report illustrates thousands of internal privacy and security issues that Google tracked from 2013 to 2018.

For example, a contractor in 2017 reportedly used administrator access to download and view a private game trailer on Nintendo's YouTube channel. They then shared a screenshot of the trailer with a friend, who posted it on Reddit.

An internal Google review called the incident “unintentional.” Nintendo released the trailer in 2017 and launched the game, Yoshi's Crafted World, on Switch in 2019.

Other privacy issues noted in the latest leak include Google making recommendations on YouTube based on deleted watch history and noting that someone was manipulating customer marketing accounts on its ad platform.

There were also data vulnerabilities, such as the one in Google's acquisition of Socratic.org. Google noted that more than a million user e-mail addresses from the company were publicly exposed for more than a year.

A Nintendo Switch gaming system. (Photo by Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images)

Waze, which Google won in 2013 for $1.3 billion, it also had a carpool feature that revealed users' trips and home addresses.

In another incident, Google accidentally used Google Street View in 2016 to read and store thousands of license plate numbers.

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An employee reported the problem and Google deleted the data, according to the report.

Google had another massive internal leak recently. Last week 2500 internal documents told what the tech giant, which holds 90% of the global search engine market, really thinks about the ranking of search results.

Some of the internal Google documents exposed in that leak contradicted his public comments, such as how much weight clicks have in ranking.

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