Google Hangouts/GTalk error sends messages to wrong recipients

Be careful,  a scary little error has popped up on a Google product forum regarding functionality issues with Google Hangouts/G-Talk messages. According to this morning's reports, users have been saying that messages sent through the service were being redirected to the wrong recipients.

Although the errors lasted for several hours this morning, Google has now issued a statement saying the glitches have been resolved. "There was an issue today that affected some people using Google’s instant messaging services," a Google spokesperson said in a statement issued to Huffington Post. "We have since identified the problem, stopped it from recurring, and are currently applying a fix. We're very sorry to anyone affected."

Having sensitive messages sent to unintended recipients can certainly cause a lot of problems, and possibly even worse than the issues users experienced with Google's now defunct social network, Buzz. The network never really got off the ground due to the fact that it was publicly displaying user email contacts, among other things, and likely lead to Google's privacy director stepping down earlier this year.

Some have suggested that the Google Hangouts errors were intermittent, with no discernible pattern to who was affected or why. It appears to be a glitch that Google has now cleaned up, and we will update this post if any new information surfaces regarding the issue continuing. You can check out the Apps Status Dashboard for updates directly from Google.