It turned out that the 'Google News' application for Android was conducting several gigabytes of communication while the user did not know it

By Marc Kubischta

The Android version of Google's news application "Google News" has revealed that there is a bug in the background that makes a lot of communication irrespective of the user's operation. According to the user reporting the problem, there is a case where it took place while the 21 GB communication was unknown, and the user who reached the upper limit of the data amount had to pay the additional fee.

Google News app bug is using up gigabytes of background data without users' knowledge - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/22/18011028/google-news-app-bug-background-data-overage-charge

According to the content posted on Google's forum, when a person named Jordan waking up in the morning using Galaxy 8+ in Japan, "Google News" was doing 7.65 GB of communication overnight It was understood that it was.

Google News used 7.65GB of background data overnight - Google Product Forum

Mr. Jordan basically said that the smartphone was Wi-Fi connected, but it seems that there was a possibility that the connection was intermittent due to weak radio waves of Wi-Fi. Nevertheless, it is usually unlikely that the news application will communicate over 7 GB overnight. Mr. Jordan is posting on the Google News help forum with a screen shot of the screen. The period described in the screenshot is "September 1 - October 1", but since this screenshot was created on September 1, actually only one day of traffic and It is getting.

The same problem is also being brought to The Verge of foreign media. According to what the reader Zach Dowdle entered in The Verge, it turned out that the "Google News" application is performing 12 GB of communication at night. It seems that the "Google News" application was receiving data via mobile communication because this user was not connected via Wi-Fi. As a result, Mr. Dowdle said that he had to pay an extra charge of $ 75 (about 8400 yen).

Also, it has become evident that over 21 GB of communication suddenly occurred when connected to Wi-Fi. In both cases, it is a characteristic that an abnormal surge in the graph can be taken out.

There seems to be a case in which a large amount of communication has been performed even though some users have set to communicate only when Wi-Fi is connected. Google seems to be working on solving the problem, but in the meantime it is likely that there will be no effective workaround for turning off background communication or deleting the application itself for the foreseeable future.