Is GoogleNews safe to use?

GoogleNews integrates 1 third-party SDK for advertising. It collects data linked to your identity including Purchases, Location, Contact Info, and Contacts and 7 more categories. It includes 1 advertising or attribution SDK. Whether this is acceptable depends on your personal privacy preferences.

What permissions does GoogleNews need?

GoogleNews requests 5 iOS permissions: Camera, Contacts, Photo Library, Location (When In Use), and Save to Photo Library.

How many SDKs does GoogleNews have?

GoogleNews integrates 1 third-party SDK. It is Google AdMob, used for advertising. None are for analytics.

Does GoogleNews use Google SDKs?

Yes. GoogleNews includes 1 Google or Firebase SDK: Google AdMob. These are primarily used for advertising.

Does GoogleNews access your location?

Yes. GoogleNews requests location access. The developer states: "Google News uses the device’s location to give you more relevant weather reports and local news.".

Does GoogleNews access your camera?

GoogleNews requests access to your camera. The developer does not provide a reason. These permissions are only active when you grant them in iOS Settings.

Does GoogleNews access your contacts?

Yes. GoogleNews requests access to your contacts. The developer states: "No reason provided".

Does GoogleNews run in the background?

Yes. GoogleNews registers 3 background modes, which means it can perform certain tasks when you're not actively using it.

What are some alternatives to GoogleNews?

Other news apps include 5-0 Radio Pro , ABC News , AJ English , Creators , AppAdvice , and Aungbarlay . Each app takes a different approach to news and varies in its data collection and SDK usage.

News · Privacy report

Google News

Free · ★4.6 · Google

Is GoogleNews safe?

It collects a lot of your data itself.

Our take. Its own App Store privacy label declares GoogleNews links 11 categories of your data to your identity, including purchases, location, contact info and contacts. It is owned by Google, an advertising company, so that data is available to Google. That collection, more than any outside tracker, is the story here.

Privacy footprint · vs 81 newsHeavy

Trackers from other companies1 · some

typical news: 5

Data the app links to you11 types · a lot

typical news: 4 · from its own privacy label

What it collects about you

GoogleNews links 11 categories of your data to you.

From the developer's own App Store privacy label. These are the kinds of data GoogleNews ties to your identity.

PurchasesLocationContact InfoContactsUser ContentSearch HistoryBrowsing HistoryIdentifiersUsage DataDiagnosticsOther Data

Who else is inside

It carries trackers from 1 company.

Third-party SDKs found in the app, matched to the company that publishes each. Present in the code; we do not observe what they transmit.

🇺🇸GoogleAnalytics

Firebase, AdMob and Google analytics SDKs, built to record how you use the app and serve ads.

SDK

How it compares

Where it sits among news.

Every one of these apps we have scanned, on the two measures above: third-party trackers it carries (across) and data it links to you on its own label (up). Toward the top right is more invasive.

Each dot is one new app. GoogleNews sits high on the left: it collects a lot itself but uses few outside trackers.

The evidence

What it's built from.

All 1 SDKs in the app, grouped by what they are for. 1 are third-party trackers.

1advertising

1 of the 1 is a third-party tracker. The rest are the app's own code and standard open-source building blocks.

Show the full SDK list

GoogleAnalytics · USA

Google AdMob

Standard libraries0 · on-device

The app's own code plus open-source interface, storage and networking libraries.

How we know this

Counterspy downloads the app from the App Store and statically analyzes its compiled binary. Embedded SDKs are matched against a signature database and resolved to the company that operates each. We also read the developer's App Store privacy label, which lists the data the app says it collects and links to you. We do not run the app or intercept its traffic, so we report capabilities present in the code and the developer's own disclosures, not proven transmission. We assess privacy and data collection, not malware, security flaws, or developer intent. Reports are automated and never edited for payment. Scan v5.116, 2026-04-03.

Third-party trackers are advertising, analytics and attribution SDKs detected by static signature matching. Presence shows a capability is compiled in, not that it ran or transmitted data.
"Data the app links to you" is the count of data categories the developer declares as Data Linked To You in its App Store privacy label. Labels are self-reported and not verified by Apple.
Comparison across the 81 news in our corpus. Trackers: median 5. Data linked to you: median 4.