Google News bug burns through excessive data, one user sees $240 bill

Damien Wilde | Oct 23 2018 - 6:13 am PT

Spare a thought for one poor Google News user who, due to an application background refresh error, received a data bill for $240 having used 7.65GB of extra data whilst charging overnight.

Initially posted in the Google forums, and then picked up by The Verge, the problem has been reported by a few users, all noticing sudden spikes in data usage as long ago as June, with some continued random reports on Twitter and Reddit.

A Google News representative has said the company is working to resolve the issue and push a fix, but this issue may continue to affect users until a resolution is found. Until that update is released (unless you have an unlimited data plan), we would suggest disabling background data for the application. Please note: This will prevent push notifications for new stories from coming through.

The relevant teams are currently investigating and working towards a fix, and we’ll be posting updates directly to this thread. We may also reach out if there is additional troubleshooting info that would be helpful in our investigation.

If turning off background data access is not top of your agenda then we’d also recommend installing an application such as Datally — from Google — which will help you manage all data usage and warn you if you reach your limit. Not a perfect solution, but it might help.