Google docs glitch that locked out users raises privacy concerns

Google Docs users faced an unexpected glitch Tuesday, as they were locked out of their own documents for violating the company’s terms of service.

Some users were alerted to the lockout with pop-up messages that read: “This message has been flagged as inappropriate and can no longer be shared.”

Confused users of the online tool took to social media, wondering why their content was flagged.

Rachael Bale, a reporter for Geographic’s Wildlife Watch, said that she was locked out of her Google Doc while writing an article for work.

A Google employee responded to the tweets, saying the message was caused by a technical glitch. Hours later, the company said a fix was in place.

But the glitch raised privacy concerns that Google is keeping an eye on content written using Google Docs.

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Google is able to track what users upload and type into documents, according to The Washington Post, but it does not technically read them.

On its website, the company explains its “automated systems analyze your content,” to provide users with relevant products, features and detect spam. It also adds that it collects information about what users do online on their other websites.

“We collect information about the services that you use and how you use them, like when you watch a video on YouTube, visit a website that uses our advertising services, or view and interact with our ads and content,” it says.

Bale later spoke to The New York Times about her experience, calling it “problematic,” but not necessarily surprising.

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“We know Google has access to all kinds of information about us,” she said. Bale told the Times that she avoids using the online tool for “anything sensitive.”

Dana Gardner, an expert in cloud technologies, also told the Times that users need to be aware of a company’s privacy rules.

“We should all be keenly aware that any and all content we create, handle or amend inside of these cloud services is being evaluated and scrubbed, and it’s not being done by people, it’s by machines,” he said.