Last night Google News announced that a bug in the Google News app that reportedly cost some Android users hundreds of dollars in data usage has been fixed.
Google also posted a form for affected users to fill out detailing how they were affected by the bug.
On the Google News User Help Forum, Google employee Lisa Wang wrote:
“Many thanks for your patience throughout this process and letting us know about the issue. We appreciate the efforts provided by a number of people in this forum to help us rectify the problem. We can confirm that this affected Android users only and has now been fixed.
“If you believe you were affected, please get in touch by completing this form to help us understand the impact. In the form, we will request information related to any unusual data usage you experienced and may need permission to contact your carrier to further investigate the impact.”
The bug was first reported on the forum on June 5th by user Mike Snook.
Reports began snowballing on Aug 31, 2018, when a user identifying himself as “Jordan” reported that his Google News app had used “7.65GB of background data overnight.”
Throughout September and October, more and more users chimed in reporting huge data usage from the Google News app. One user said Google News had used 14GB of data overnight when it wasn’t in use. Users reported extra data costs of as much as $300.
It’s important to note that at this point Google has not made any statements as to if, or how, affected users might be compensated. The form simply asks users to “please get in touch by completing this form to help us understand how this bug impacted you.”
Did you get bit by the Google News data usage bug?
If so, tell us about your experience below – and be sure to share this post with your friends, family and followers on social media. They’ll appreciate the heads up!
Disclosure – the author of this post, Chris Andrews, is a volunteer Product Expert on the Google News Help Forum.
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