Gmail security settings???

November 18, 2012 12:11 PM

I was checking the security setting on my gmail account this AM and was alarmed to see that govtrack.us had somehow been granted " granted the following services access to your Google Account". Especially concerning since i had never seen that site, or even heard of it. What gives?
posted by dougiedd to computers & internet (5 answers total)

Govtrack.us is a legit website that allows you to track congressional items. Maybe you were looking up a piece of proposed legislation and used your Gmail address to sign in to receive alerts?
posted by devinemissk at 12:32 PM on November 18, 2012

I know Josh Tauberer, who runs GovTrack.us. I just alerted him to your post—perhaps he'll know what's going on.
posted by waldo at 12:33 PM on November 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

Well it, seems you can use a gmail account as a login to govtrack.us through OpenID, so I would guess either you signed up to access govtrack with your Google account and then forgot about it, or your gmail account is compromised and somebody else did. Why on Earth somebody would use a hacked gmail account to sign up for a legislative tracking service that offers no opportunities for fraud is not readily apparent to me, so I'd say the former is more likely.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 12:36 PM on November 18, 2012

On Twitter, Josh says that he suspects he accidentally reset a Google API key.
posted by waldo at 3:07 PM on November 18, 2012 [3 favorites]

thanks Waldo!
posted by dougiedd at 11:46 PM on November 23, 2012