Google News is chewing up huge amounts of data in one very annoying bug. As reported by The Verge. Many Android users have taken to Google’s help forum and Reddit to complain about the issue, which in some cases has resulted in dozens of gigabytes being consumed in less than a month. Reports indicate the problem has been ongoing since August.
A Google community manager acknowledged the problem in September, after unhappy users reported data usage as high as 24GB, resulting in excess charges that amounted to hundreds of dollars. Some users said they had the Google News app set to “download via Wi-Fi only,” but were still stung by the bug. In a thread post on September 26, Google News’ Community Manager Lisa Wang said that Google was investigating the issue and working on a fix. Nearly a month has passed since that update and it appears that a fix still has not been provided. Some unsuspecting users are being hit with data overage charges as a result.
According to some impacted users, Google News used large amounts of background data despite the Download via WiFi feature being enabled. One unfortunate user claims to have been hit with $385 USD in overage charges after the app used 24GB of mobile data. Another user suffered from the same bug, and lost 19GB of data, costing him $240.
A temporary solution:
Google News users worried about potentially being impacted by this bug can download Google Datally, the company’s data-saving product. This app includes a feature that allows the user to set maximum limits for the amount of mobile data that can be used, preventing overage charges. Of course, getting rid of Google News until the bug is fixed is also a solution.
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