Google will compensate customers affected by a bug in Google Photos where photo and video uploads were incorrectly counted against the cloud storage limit. Anyone who took out a subscription as a result can get the money back.
This is a bug in Google Photos that only affected iOS users. Photos users can back up photos and videos they take from their Android or iOS device to the cloud storage service One for free, so such uploads do not count towards the storage limit. Due to the error, these uploads were mistakenly counted, leading some iOS users to be notified that their storage had become full.
Google states that some users have purchased a paid subscription because of this notification because they believed they had no space available to upload photos and videos. In these cases, Google has contacted to indicate that the paid subscription fee will be refunded, 9To5Google knows. It is not known how many people are involved, but it is said to be a ‘limited number’.
Incidentally, Google has previously indicated that it will stop backing up photos and videos in One for free. From next year, this option will disappear and uploads will simply count towards the storage limit, so a subscription will have to be taken out sooner. In the future, Google would also like to offer a number of functions for a fee.