Hacker News Reader

Comment by thoreauway | Hacker News Reader

Doesn't Google OWN Niantic? So now Google has access to our Google data? Don't see the issue.

1. Google no longer owns Niantic, they spun off as their own company last year.

2. The security risk isn't that Niantic is going to turn evil, it's that Niantic becomes an access point for other (evil) hackers.

Niantic spun off https://plus.google.com/+Ingress/posts/GVvbYZzWyTT

They no longer own them. They were spun during the housecleaning before the Alphabet announcement.

Yep, though they also soon after made a further investment in Niantic. It may sound bizarre at first, but there might be good reasons why they did that. For instance, Nintendo might've been less likely to team up with a wholly Google-owned Niantic. (purely speculation on my part)

https://nianticlabs.com/blog/niantic-tpc-nintendo/

I strongly suspect a direct Google/Nintendo tie was considered less favorable than some little ex-Google company that still uses Google servers working on a Nintendo game. The announcement timing was pretty close.

Having been created by ex-Googlers you would think they knowingly chose to get full-access permissions. I wonder if there is a some ulterior motive to the app. Some have suggested up-to-date street-view mining; that wouldn't require full google account access though.

> So now Google has access to our Google data? Don't see the issue.

Even if they were still owned by Google, a compromised phone with Pokemon Go has a nice juicy access token with admin rights to your account to siphon off.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com