Google users fight for refunds as unauthorized API usage bills soar

UPDATED After we published this story, Google reimbursed both of the sources who spoke to us on the record for it, Isuru Fonseka and Rod Danan. But the company has said it will hold fast on its policy of automatically expanding spending limits. Read our followup here. Original story below: Several Google Cloud customers say …

[Pascal Monett]

"It's just draining my money !"

Hey, what did you think The Cloud^TM was, something to help you ?

It's there to pump you while finding nice excuses to ignore you when it's down.

You used to be able to pop down to the server room and yell at your IT that they need to get on with it while ignoring the fact that your yelling at them kept them from actually getting the fuck on with it.

Now, you have the luxury of paying for faceless IT drones you can't even yell at because, when it's down, you can't talk talk to them, much less yell at them.

I hope you're happy with the result.

[Martin M]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

Very ranty and all, but what is your proposed alternative that he should have been doing to put a map on his web page? Putting a server in a colo facility and deploying and operating his own geospatial stack (have you seen how complex they can be?) and using OpenStreetMap?

Google’s behaviour here was shitty. Reusing keys for wildly differently priced and unrelated services is wrong. Spending caps that don’t cap is wrong. They need to eat the cost on the former, and be taken to court or ideally regulated in some way on the latter.

[rg287]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

Very ranty and all, but what is your proposed alternative that he should have been doing to put a map on his web page? Putting a server in a colo facility and deploying and operating his own geospatial stack (have you seen how complex they can be?) and using OpenStreetMap?

OpenStreetMap have a public API (the Overpass API, which is consumer-oriented, as opposed to the main API which is editing-oriented) and there are libraries for every language and framework you might need... Yes, you do have to pick a provider to use that API against, and many of these are not "corporates". But they're also long-running, stable and reliable. I cannot conceive of why people would prefer Google Maps beyond a need for StreetView, or an unhealthy attachment to the Big G ("noone got fired for buying IBM"). Possibly if you've got some integration with Analytics and your Google Business Profile then it's helpful... but if you're selling a product that just uses the Maps API... there are better providers out there.

If you want to buy/use a service from a corporate, then you could also try Mapbox, HERE, Apple Maps (don't laugh. Actually okay these days), MapQuest, ArcGIS Platform, TomTom or Azure Maps. Depending on your specific needs, these services do some/all/more than Google Maps.

I run a number of small club/org websites and we don't talk to Google - Matomo analytics (non-cookie-setting, so no cookie banner), OSM mapping embeds... corporates have their own needs, some of which are more complex or speciifc. They also have a need not to run up a $30k bill for API abuse because their so-called mapping provider decided to re-scope their API keys to include AI video generation...

Corporates should be rapidly black-listing Google as a vendor for that sort of conduct. Re-scoping API credentials and changing spending caps is not merely "shitty". It's incompetent. It spits in the face of every established security best-practice. It says that Google is no longer a safe or reliable partner (if people hadn't figured that out already).

[Loudon D'Arcy]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

Thank you rg287. I'm currently outlining a web app that *was* going to rely on G-Maps, but your post has given me some good alternatives. Much appreciated!

[Mr. Flibble]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

I second openstreetmaps.

It's great, and sometimes has more detail than Google.

The amount of times I have seen a Google map on a website with a pin in an obvious wrong place for the company location is crazy.

Maybe it's user error, but seems unlikely.

OpenStreetMap is the future :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

Regarding wrong pin positioning on Google Maps, they have my house located in the middle of a school playing field, half a mile away. I've submitted corrections multiple times over the years, but to no avail. Great fun when couriers rely on Google Maps and are too overworked to find my street and house for themselves. I've had a picture of a parcel in what is probably a hedge next to the playing field as "proof of delivery to your safe place".

[MachDiamond]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

" I've had a picture of a parcel in what is probably a hedge next to the playing field as "proof of delivery to your safe place"."

Just a couple of days ago UPS delivered a parcel meant for me (should have gone post) and included a photo of some unknown front door. They have denied the claim. There's no meta data on the image so I can't tell where the image was taken.

I've had other things mis-delivered with a photo that is obviously wrong and the photo has not helped. Obviously, they take the photo for some other reason that has nothing to do with anything beneficial to me. A package lying on a doorstep with a low resolution photo doesn't do anything as there's no way to read anything from the label. Gross size?

[ecofeco]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

Exactly rg287.

All of that. ALL OF THAT.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

"Re-scoping API credentials and changing spending caps is not merely "shitty". It's incompetent."

Maybe. It's certainly a unilateral change to a contract and, consequently, surely unenforcible in law. If my credit card provider decides to up my credit limit, they send me notice and I have the choice of declining the change.

[MachDiamond]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

"If my credit card provider decides to up my credit limit, they send me notice and I have the choice of declining the change."

You can get them to reduce the limit. Having too much credit can be a problem when applying for loans. The banks don't want to see the ability to go on a huge buying binge. I've got a card on my mother's account so I can take care of things on her behalf if I needed to. The account has a rather low limit to limit risk. Resolving a matter of a couple grand is easier than tens of thousands. My cards are within a comfortable realm and I don't use them very often. If I were traveling more for business, I might want a low limit card that I can pay off trip by trip rather than having a really high limit on a single card to cover any contingency. I could drive across the US in a rented car for a couple of grand. A friend of mine was landed in Chicago on 9/11 and marched straight to the car hire desk and got a luxury car to drive home to Los Angeles. I don't recall the exact amount, but it was very reasonable and the upgrade was points and well worth it for such a long trip. How much immediate contingency do you need to cover vs the amount of credit risk?

[powershift]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

Aside from Apple (from what I hear), have you tried using any of your suggested map apps? Try driving in a metro area that you've never been to and need to go run errands in and use your ArcGIS, Azure, Mapbox, etc. to take you where you need to go. Mapbox and the like are great, but routing is not. They are still strong for things like weather, overlays, etc.

[rg287]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

have you tried using any of your suggested map apps?

Well... they're mostly not apps. They're mapping services. Which is the topic of dicussion - devs needing a mapping API to support some function in their service. And Google fucking around with API keys. The Google Maps app is not the topic of discussion here.

But even then... Apple Maps, Waze, HERE WeGo and TomTom Maps are all fine for end-user navigation. As an end user there are a nunch of good apps. As a dev there are a bunch of good services. So why Google Maps?

[Martin M]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

rg287 thumbs up on your considered reply, none of which I disagree with. My main point regarded Pascal Monet’s generalised anti-cloud rant.

Your alternative services involve what he would no doubt term as “someone else’s computer”, because that’s normally the sensible way of doing it. Almost all, beyond some kind of free tier, need a billing relationship which might in theory be abused.

So the question, for most people, is really “good cloud” vs “bad cloud”. Large enterprises won’t care because they can easily beat up their technical account manager and/or sue, but this kind of behaviour is (and should be) very off putting for mid sized businesses and smaller and an act of self harm by Google.

I have no idea why Google doesn’t just refund the money (which is peanuts for them), make the spend cap do what it says (sounds like it’s more credit risk management for Google as it is), and turn it on by default at some multiple of peak historic spend for people with legacy Maps API keys.

[Eric 9001]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

Was google ever a safe or reliable "partner"?

Businesses after all only care about doing what their shareholders want - not what you want.

[luminous]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

Leaflet:

https://leafletjs.com

https://github.com/leaflet/Leaflet

I've been using it for about 10 years. When I saw Google demanding an API key just to use maps... I could foresee something like this happening.

[Loudon D'Arcy]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

Thank you, Luminous. I've bookmarked that one!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

> Leaflet

It's not 2015 anymore. The thing did its job back in the day, but its performance is dismal in this day and age.

Try OpenLayers or MapLibre if you just need a map, or Deck for a rich WebGL alternative.

PS: for a server based alternative, the venerable MapServer is still around and still filling an important niche for those who use their own imagery.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

Doh... That's the idea pure and simple. Google is EVIL. Anyone in IT should have that tattooed to their eyeballs by now.

[MachDiamond]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

"Now, you have the luxury of paying for faceless IT drones you can't even yell at because, when it's down, you can't talk talk to them, much less yell at them."

Sounds like my soon to be replaced web host. When my site is down, their site is down and their phones/email/etc. Not only do I not have a way to sort out what's going on, they have no way to post a system status message that lets boy+dog know that they know there's a problem and it's being worked on. Eggs:Baskets.

I can work around lots of things if I have some clue about how much workaround I need to do.

[EricM]

Re: "It's just draining my money !"

Along those exact lines:

> What the hell's going on?

The AI industry might finally have found a way to raise their revenue to levels needed to not go bankrupt.

So, do not expect this "problem" to go away anytime soon...

[that one in the corner]

Giving you more transparency and control over your Gemini API costs

Removing the limits without your first requesting it is the total opposite of giving you either transparency or control.

Oh, wait, silly me.

They didn't write "Simon says this is giving you more transparency and control over your Gemini API costs".

[Jamie Jones]

"Additionally, one user told The Register they had spending caps in place that should have stopped any bill over $250. Yet according to Google those caps can be automatically upgraded to $100,000 – without user input – if the user has spent a total of $1,000 throughout the life of the account, and the account is more than a month old"

Then it's not a spending cap, is it?

A catalogue of errors here. Reusing the same API key on a high cost item? And a key that was previously designed to be public?

Smells like a class action suit to me.

They've now taken steps to ensure the maps key cannot be used for Gemini? Good. And all the costs accrued prior to this need to be swallowed by them, not the customer. The fact they even think it's ok to do this shows they are too big.

[deadlockvictim]

Well...

Jamie Jones» Then it's not a spending cap, is it?

It is, but only for Google. And since this Cloud has been built by Google for Google, the cap works well for them.

[abend0c4]

One of the reasons my only cloudy dabblings have been restricted to "free tiers" that also don't require you to hand over any billing details is that none of the providers appears to have a genuine "spending cap". They all appear to be hedged with small print that basically says you'll get a best-effort warning at some unspecified point if your usage goes above a certain level, but it's your responsibility to respond to the warning and disable the offending workload. That leaves you exposed to all sorts of mischief.

While I can understand that there might be some lag in detecting excess use (validating every single request would be a hugely expensive overhead in itself), I don't see why it can't be done sufficiently promptly for the providers to swallow the costs between the excess occurring and it being detected. And whereas large corporate users might not want their services to go offline simply as a result of unanticipated demand, there are plenty of users for whom it would be be far the better option.

I did suggest some time ago that datacentre hardware would ultimately diverge so significantly from the kind of PCs we have now that the options for going it alone would be increasingly diminished and was met with some skepticism. However, the cloud providers seem to have achieved a similar result by simply buying up all the memory and storage production going forward. How much longer are we even going to have the choice about "running it on someone else's computer"?

[Someone Else]

How much longer are we even going to have the choice about "running it on someone else's computer"?

<snark>You don't have that now, because I'm not gonna let you run your stuff on my computer. So there!</snark>

[Eric 9001]

You're cool and you don't execute arbitrary remote JavaScript?

[FirstTangoInParis]

Class action means the lawyers get richer. How did this even get signed off by someone with more than a few brain cells? If your mobile provider suddenly increased your roaming charge cap because you went roaming and started racking up a bill, there would be hell to pay. So why is this behaviour even slightly acceptable? And why are not production (and designed to be public) API keys only for a single purpose?

[anothercynic]

I would absolutely sue them for this. And automatic Tier upgrades?! Without notifying you?! WHAT THE ACTUAL [insert expletive]!!!

If I set my Tier to Tier 1, I expect it to *stay there* unless I, the account owner, instruct Google to raise it (even though Google says "hey, you qualify for Tier 124687"). If I want to stay at Tier 1, I WANT TO STAY AT BLOODY TIER ONE! You do *not* get the right to just bump my tier up!

[Anonymous Coward]

You DID read the license agreement for Tier 1 before signing for it, right? RIGHT?

/sarcasm

[Strahd Ivarius]

Google is expecting you to set up a Gemini powered agent to look at your spending limit and put it back to the tier you initially setup.

Of course, it will consume all your credit to do so, ensuring that you need to go to the next tier to be able to use the API key for your initial purpose.

And then, rinse & repeat.

[Roland6]

This sounds more like the API’s themselves aren’t implementing best practise - would not be surprised if the call still includes the key/password in plan text rather than using a more secure passkey style of key code which takes account of the source/calling domain/IP@.

[Tron]

A spending cap is a spending cap.

I'm not sure Google auto-raising it, particularly when it can be hacked, would be accepted by a judge. In the UK, check to see whether you can use the Small Claims Court. It usually does cases up to £10,000.

[JohnMurray]

Use..

crooks, get conned

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Google will fix it...

Google is currently fixing critical vulnerabilities in about 6 months, but this vulnerability is more profitable that usual. It might take longer.

[Someone Else]

Re: Google will fix it...

Or...they could just revert the connection between Maps API keys and Gemini. There! Problem solved and "best practices" followed! Sorted, then.

_{/me is not holding my breath...}

[RvS513]

"Pray I do not alter it any further"

You will just pay and continue to use our stuff anyway.

What are you going to do anyway? Find an alternative? Hahahaaa!

[Anonymous Coward]

> "Fonseka said he was tempted to call his credit card company and have them charge back the cost, but he fears that would likely result in the suspension of his project inside Google Cloud"

A chargeback is exactly what you should be doing. If they respond by disabling your account that's all the evidence you need to use a different mapping provider.

You set a spend limit and they didn't honour it, so they need to swallow the costs. Your bank will side with you on that one.

[Herring`]

Fine. Except that moving your project to a different cloud and changing the mapping is a fucktonne of work and Google know that. When you give it a moment's thought, putting your entire business at the mercy of a capricious cloud provider is a pretty risky move.

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's just maps on a website, then it shouldn't be a massive amount of work. I've done just that twice, with the second move from Google Maps appropriately enough. Took me one day to do the scripting changes (thankfully TypeScript rather than directly in JavaScript), plus roughly half a day for a front end dev to tweak the HTML/CSS and test across a range of mobile and desktop web browsers.

[Anonymous Coward]

> If it's just maps on a website, then it shouldn't be a massive amount of work.

I am speculating here but my guess is that he must be using the maps API for stuff like geocoding or getting into like business opening hours. There are, as has been pointed out already, much better and more affordable solutions them Google's not particularly impressive maps if all you're after is really just a map.

[anothercynic]

Absolutely 100% agree on that. I would download my work from Google Cloud and then dispute. That way you have your project code/materials.

[MachDiamond]

"I would download my work from Google Cloud and then dispute."

Same as you should do when closing a bank account. I've run into their practice of holding funds or freezing withdrawals "to cover any incoming charges". Withdraw all funds AND THEN close the account. You would still be liable for any charges, should they be allowed through, but if you've already moved things around, there won't be any. They® should teach this in school.

[Eric 9001]

Why would schools teach students anything actually useful, except when it is needed to implant obedience to governmental and business needs?

Schools may teach students to read and do math, but only to the extent that meets the needs of governments and businesses (still, I've witnessed many who seem to be able to read, but can't follow clear written instructions).

Schools also teach students how to use computers, but not how to use them properly - only to implant dependence in «flavor» of proprietary OS and proprietary programs.

It wouldn't serve business interests for students to be taught that all funds should be withdrawn before closing an account, or other useful things like going over the actual taxation rate of plebs etc would it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you need to specifically download your work as part of this process? Do you not have a backup copy already?

[Eric 9001]

Many like to keep things exciting by not making backups.

[elsergiovolador]

Poogle

There's a useful legal concept for what's been done to these accounts: theft of service. Most jurisdictions recognise a variant of it, covering obtaining services known to be available only on the basis of payment, by a dishonest act, with no intention to pay. Stolen credentials used to consume paid AI inference is a textbook fit.

Which raises an interesting question. The output of all that consumption (the videos, the images, the tokens) presumably went somewhere. Unless these were purely vandalism runs aimed at running up the bill, the artefacts have commercial value: someone, somewhere, now holds a stack of AI-generated content they paid nothing for, generated on hardware billed to the legitimate cardholder. And the provider holds the logs. It knows the prompts, the output destinations, the IP addresses, the receiving accounts, all of it.

A bank that processed five-figure fraudulent transactions against a customer's card and then declined to reverse them on the grounds that it "found no evidence of fraud" would be having a very interesting conversation with its regulator. The posture here appears to be that the money has been spent, the GPU cycles have been burned, and the matter is closed.

The spending caps tell their own story. A user-set $250 limit that an automated system silently lifts to $100,000 once an internal billing threshold has been crossed functions as a tripwire, scaling with how much the provider believes it can extract. A cap genuinely designed to protect the customer from runaway bills would be sticky.

At which point a regulator might reasonably ask how revenue from unauthorised API consumption is being recognised internally. The two possibilities are easy enough to distinguish: an operator treating it as an unwanted accident refunds the charges, pursues the attackers using the evidence it already holds, and tightens the controls. An operator treating it as forecast revenue keeps the money, points customers at a self-service support form, and waits for the news cycle to move on.

[mark l 2]

Re: Poogle

For the amounts involved which are large to us mere mortals but when you are Google and you make $100k profit in a few seconds its a rounding error, there would be little incentive for them to bother chasing up the perps who used the stolen credentials. Unless they were dumb enough to be using their own IP and not via a proxy or VPN to access it that would probably end up being a dead end. And even if they find the person if they are in a jurisdiction like China or Russia its unlikely it would get to court to get their money back.

This shouldn't have happened in the first place if you have set a $250 spending cap that cap should NOT be automatically upped by Google without the account holder explicitly agreeing to that. I guess until Google fixes it the way forward is to use one of those virtual credit cards where you can set your own spending cap on the card and if it tries to exceed it the transaction get declined.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: regulator might...

What regulator? Is there a regulator?

[retiredFool]

Re: regulator might...

If google gets US home field, you are right, what regulator under trump. They were all DOGE'd.

[M.V. Lipvig]

Re: Poogle

"The spending caps tell their own story. A user-set $250 limit that an automated system silently lifts to $100,000 once an internal billing threshold has been crossed functions as a tripwire, scaling with how much the provider believes it can extract."

That phrase negates the rest of your post. If the user authorized a cap of 250 bucks, then the user should receive a warning at 200 bucks and service should be shut off at 250 bucks. A provider should not be able to make unauthorized changes to a customer's account, and there is precedence for this in the US.

Telecom companies get into a lot of trouble from stuffing, which is where they add services to someone's account without authorization. The Googler has just started this. What we can expect is that the Googler's customers will set their limits back to 250 bucks and put anything else back, just to have the Googler make those same changes again in a month or two just as US phone companies did.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Poogle

"Telecom companies get into a lot of trouble from stuffing, which is where they add services to someone's account without authorization."

They also got away with that for some time so even after being caught, there may have been plenty of money made. The lawyers make out like bandits, but people in class actions often get a check that isn't worth the cost of petrol to take to the bank.

[Someone Else]

Re: Poogle (et al)

At which point a regulator might reasonably ask how revenue from unauthorised API consumption is being recognised internally.

You're assuming that the "regulator" here is actually in the business of protecting users/customers/the "public" from predatory business practices, as opposed to being in the business of finding any possible scenario that would allow the business to weasel out of responsibility (read: allowing it to keep the ill-gotten cash). Here on this side of the Pond in the post-tRump era, one cannot assume....

[FIA]

For years Google/Alphabet has been allowed to print money, by controlling the advertising black box from both ends.

Who knew that normalising that behaviour would be a bad idea?

[Bebu sa Ware]

Do some more evil ?

If you lodge a chargeback they kill your app. Seems very much like a protection racket to me. Only slighly less extortionary than awaking to find your thoroughbred's head next to you.

Technically the whole api key thing necessarily stored in the app appears to be no more than an obfuscated version of a passkey or password. At least it could be a kind of capabilitly which gives accesss to a restricted set of services, their sub·services and other restrictions.

I could imagine that when an app is purchased from the Playstore a unique per purchaser sub·key could augment the app vendor's api key which might be used to rate limit api calls for any given purchase.

To me it seems like my purchasing a prepaid phone sim for voice/text only; some toe-rag cloning it and accessing a host of expensive streaming and download services; my credit card being charged; Should I request a chargeback my apartment's electricity will be cut off.

[NXM]

increasing charge limits...

... in response to increased spending is what the credit card companies used to do when you approached your card's limit, so they could charge you more interest. Illegal in the UK now, at least, and should be illegal for Google as well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: increasing charge limits...

Not the same thing.

If you are so skint that you need to spend on credit knowing you can't pay it back within the month, then fair enough, that's a choice you make as an adult.

However if your only way to control your spending is to force the company not to let you spend more then you shouldn't have a credit card at all. "Please don't let me borrow money!"? FFS.

What next? Restricting how much beer you can buy to make sure you don't drink too much? Restricting how much you can spend on downloading movies?

PIN protection is for adults to set to restrict children, and shouldn't need to be used by credit card companies on grown adults.

[Jason Bloomberg]

Re: increasing charge limits...

However if your only way to control your spending is to force the company not to let you spend more then you shouldn't have a credit card at all. "Please don't let me borrow money!"? FFS.

Strawman.

I have caps on my cards. It is not to control my spending - It's to stop criminal cunts from spending my money should they ever be in a position to do that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: increasing charge limits...

Same here. My credit card company looked at my credit report and increased my cap, without me asking. I called and asked them to change it back and NEVER touch the cap again. It's not to keep me from overspending, it's to prevent any chance of having to deal with the same kind of nonsense Google is pushing - telling the CC owner that those charges that are 10x the size of the previous cap are perfectly legit (when they know full well they aren't).

[keithpeter]

Re: increasing charge limits...

Was about to say the same thing, I have a capped credit card that is used for Amazon/Ebay and stuff only.

Also wave and pay forces a chip and pin check every 20th transaction (my debit card does anyway) and has a cash limit.

A cap really should be a cap.

[MachDiamond]

Re: increasing charge limits...

"Also wave and pay forces a chip and pin check every 20th transaction (my debit card does anyway) and has a cash limit."

It's not very hard to modify the card so it won't "wave and pay". I feel more secure knowing that somebody can't scan my cards in a crowed place. Getting things fixed via fraud protection can take ages while the late fees and bounce charges add up. It's happened before and another reason I have nothing on auto-pay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: increasing charge limits...

Yeah, those are valid uses of the cap.

The post I was replying to talked about customers being charged more interest for using the card when they shouldn't really do so. That's what I was referring to - the nanny-cap, not the fraud-cap

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: increasing charge limits...

I agree with your reasons, and those of others who replied.

However, the post I was replying to said "so they can charge you more interest" - implying the customer spent when they shouldn't have. That's what I was referring to.

[ecofeco]

Re: increasing charge limits...

Did you TRY reading the article?

Credit limits were raised WITHOUT customers consent.

FFS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: increasing charge limits...

Did you TRY reading the post I was replying to?

We were referring to credit card companies.

FFS.

[heyrick]

according to Google those caps can be automatically upgraded to $100,000 – without user input

They need to meet a class action with a ruinous penalty (and not a slap on the wrist). Two fifty to a hundred grand is not even in the realms of logical. I can afford $250. A hundred grand, on the other hand, is years of work with not paying anything else (like all the other bills and food etc). To do this silently without specific user action is nothing short of exploitative and a blatant scam.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: according to Google those caps can be automatically upgraded to $100,000 – without user input

Agreed. How about a fine of $1000 per $1 automatic increase in cap, per customer whose cap was increased? AND a refund of any charges that exceeded the original cap.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: according to Google those caps can be automatically upgraded to $100,000 – without user input

Unfortunately Google decided to deprecate the "refund any users who have been overcharged through no fault of their own" service, as they do with anything that might be of actual use to real human beings.

[junior]

Clarification

> “You have this Google Maps key, which you know, everyone uses, and the guidance from Google is you're supposed to load it in your front end. So we did that, and all of a sudden they changed the keys so that the Google Maps key, which is exposed publicly, could be used for Gemini, and then they didn't disclose that to customers,” he said. “So then, all of a sudden, I just get multiple emails in a row. It's like $3,000, $5,000, $10,000 charged on your Google account.”

> But Fonseka said even if someone were to brute-force his API key, his Google Cloud budget cap was set at Tier 1, which was locked at $250, meaning he should never have been able to spend AUD$17,000 on AI services. “But when I logged in after the attack, it was set to like Tier 2 or Tier 3, which was like $100,000. I would have never set this,” he said.

My initial reaction: Wait, WHAT THE ACTUAL fffffff <rushes to Google Cloud console to check API keys>

But after a bit of looking at docs, I think this article needs a bit more clarification. The article doesn't say, but I'm assuming Danan was using an unrestricted key? So, when he says "all of a sudden they changed the keys" - does this actually mean that he was using an unrestricted key (which can be used for ANY API), so when the Gemini API was added, then it could be used for the Gemini API? In which case, I'm not sure the fault isn't with Danan on using an unrestricted key in public. Am I missing something?

Also, "his Google Cloud budget cap was set at Tier 1, which was locked at $250" - I assume this is talking about Gemini rate limit tiers, not budgets? It clearly states on the rate limit doc page that you will be automatically upgraded as usage increases. The real problem is that Google do not provide ANY way to cap spend. There is something called a Budget, but this is merely a way to set up an email notification (minimum timescale 1 month) if spend breaches a threshold. This is shitty, and there absolutely should be a way to cap spend, but there isn't. But the way the article is written suggests that Google are not abiding to some kind of budget cap you intentionally set, which isn't true because there is literally no way to set a budget cap. Am I missing something? Honestly a bit confused here.

[Leosghost]

Re: Clarification

This basically no different to the way that Google charge your credit card for advertising since they began selling ad space. Same scam, different day and product. Google say your ads were displayed x times..Your card has been charged for it. They give you no proof of those x number of displays at all .

[doublelayer]

Re: Clarification

From what I've seen as a non-victim, both of your assumptions are true but with extra context that makes it less clear who should shoulder the original blame.

The API token issue is because, unlike most API tokens, Google required that ones used to access Maps were distributed in public and the tokens were not specific to Maps but could access a bunch of services unless they were limited. It was still on the users to limit those tokens, and some of them made a mistake, but that's a lot harder to do when you can't specify that tokens in code are forbidden because, if you did, Maps access would break. For example, a lot of people might have a token per application and incorrectly assumed that that token should have the permissions required for that application, without considering that they needed a token to be checked into the code and one to be kept private, to be selected between whenever accessing something. I think both sides could get some blame for this situation.

The billing tiers, if my understanding is correct, seems more Google's fault. Not only do they not have functioning spending limits, but their tier system suggests they do. From what I've read, users who thought they were in tier 1 would have been able to check and still seen that they were in tier 1, even though in practice that translated to "we haven't taken you out of tier 1 yet but will do so automatically and, when we do so, instantaneously". Therefore, right up to the moment when their or someone else's usage catapulted them into a higher tier, they had no way of knowing it. That meant they were seeing misleading information about limits that would never have applied to them, but because they were stated as limits, users had a reason to trust that they would apply. Google can probably make some arguments about keeping your tokens secure even though I'd disagree with the spirit in this case, but I don't think their explanation of tier limits that aren't real is going to convince.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Clarification

No. When they were introduced, MAPS tokens were only valid for use in MAPS clients. Some time later, Google expanded the use of those, formerly restricted, tokens. I'm not sure this is what they had in mind, but this is what they got.

[Spazturtle]

Re: Clarification

"The article doesn't say, but I'm assuming Danan was using an unrestricted key? "

When they were introduced the keys could only be used for Maps, at some point Google converted all legacy Maps keys to unrestricted keys, and if you wanted a Maps only key you needed to generate a new one.

[JimmyPage]

A great use for "AI"

would be to advise on how to avoid being gouged like this.

[JessicaRabbit]

Re: A great use for "AI"

I read gouged as googled but I guess they're practically the same thing.

[Joseba4242]

How to Respond

The way to respond to this is by sending a Letter before Action, threstening to take them to court.

This goes to the legal department which has very different levers.

And if this goes to small claims court, Google can't recover legal costs so they will do their very best to avoid this.

[JLV]

Re: How to Respond

Lucky for Google, the amounts being talked about here seem to be over small claims court limits in many jurisdictions. That’s one get out of jail card, I guess.

</sarcasm>

[Not Yb]

Re: How to Respond

Most jurisdictions in the US, once the amount in dispute is higher than small claims court limits, the damages amount doubles (or sometimes trebles) the actual amount in question, so that it becomes reasonable to hire a lawyer or get one to take it on a contingency basis (aka 'only pay if you win').

[JLV]

I am surprised any of these folk seem to be talking to actual Google staff.

Seriously, with some services, one criteria is the possibility of talking to someone other than a bot if you really, really, have to. So you don’t get stuck in some doom loop.

Google has a strong whiff of “LOL. Never gonna happen.” and consequently they’re at the bottom of companies I’d choose to pay anything to.

Article is only reinforcing that.

[Clinky47]

You tell me it's raining ...

When you're p*ssing down my back.

Nothing new or unsurprisingly here.

[M.V. Lipvig]

Re: You tell me it's raining ...

This is more like telling you it's hailing while they drop deuces on your back.

[Anonymous Coward]

Feels like deception to me.

But then again, it's Google, that's more or less baked in.

That said, it's one of the reasons I use a prepay credit card for online services.. Given how easy it is to abuse the privilege (let alone the fantastic level of security of vendors which tends to appear more an afterthought) it's the only way to protect yourself from such abuse. Yes, it may mean a denial of service if it refuses a payment, but if someone is over the line I prefer that as it's easy to fix. I have grown *very* wary of service providers who insist they need a meaty credit limit (worse, those who help themselves by upping any spending restrictions you set up, like Google in this case) - not going to happen, I'll find someone else.

[Missing Semicolon]

Re: Feels like deception to me.

... Aaaand the AI services won't accept prepay cards. I wonder if Google block them too.

[ecofeco]

Dear god

What an utter shit show.

[M.V. Lipvig]

Pay attention going forward

Even after you call and complain, and set everything back, you can fully expect Googler to go back next month and change your 250 cap to 100,000 again. And again. And again. In the telecom world it's called Stuffing. Evidently the Googler has hired former Bell management.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Pay attention going forward

"you can fully expect Googler to go back next month and change your 250 cap to 100,000 again. And again. And again. "

If they make loads more money than they get fined, it might be a nice little earner for them.

[sarusa]

Bueno

Yeah, you deserve everything you get. This IS your AI future, it is not a glitch they will solve or care to solve.

[Antifa - Ost]

Re: Bueno

Do I? :(

[Anonymous Coward]

After reading this I'm even less likely to be paying to use AI or paying for Google services.

[JWLong]

But, Google has all the answers to your questions!............................

https://www.google.com/search?q=antique+national+cash+register

[Henry Wertz 1]

Isn't this illegal?

Isn't it illegal to have someone set a spending cap, then automatically raise it unilaterally without telling the customer? If not it certainly should be.

The rest of this is pretty bad too (enabling extra services on what were maps only api keys), but if people were hitting a $250 cap... well it's still bad when someone's expecting a like $50 bill but nothing like getting one for $10,000+.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Isn't this illegal?

There's a difference between store credit (google) and a credit card issued by a bank.

[Not Yb]

Re: Isn't this illegal?

Since this isn't a credit card, nor a physical 'store credit card', but a 'spending limit' instead, most of the sanity checks that Congress put on credit card issuers don't apply.

If it's in the terms and conditions agreed to, Google can do it until/unless a court says otherwise.

[Cincinnataroo]

Are these criminals?

If this is all right then there is culpable behaviour.

The restitution they owe is more than the money stolen from these people.

We'll see whether the law is worth having on this one.

[IamAProton]

NO limit on CC?

I's cool to have a 100K limit on the credit card, but wouldn't a 5-10K limit at least "limit" the damage? Or the way google suck the money is able to bypass the montly spending limit of the credit card?

[Snowy]

There's no limit!

If limit can be raised when the old limit is reached then there is no limit.

[Mike Brown 816]

Same thing just happened to me

I’m in the exact same boat as the users in this article. Just 24 hours ago, I discovered my account had been hit for nearly $16,000 in unauthorized charges. The kicker? I never actually used the Gemini API. My only interaction was following a Google email inviting me to test the new Gemma models in Google AI Studio. I caught the spike within two hours, but the billing escalated that quickly. I have an open ticket and am desperately hoping it isn’t ignored or closed without a resolution.

[Anonymous Coward]

you got the bill you asked for

api keya are insecure by default. they are for test only. hobbyist and folks who have no clue about security dont use oath2 shortlived token with refresh and secure storage and PKCE . they throw themselves voluntarily under the bus . only lazy people and deceiving cloud providers use API keys