Google News bug chews up massive amounts of data in the background

Google News is chewing up huge amounts of data in one very annoying bug.

As reported by The Verge, Android users have complained about the issue since May, with the app mysteriously downloading gigabytes of mobile data in the background.

A Google community manager acknowledged the problem in September, after unhappy users reported data usage as high as 24GB, resulting in excess charges that amounted to hundreds of dollars.

Some users said they had the Google News app set to "download via Wi-Fi only," but were still stung by the bug.

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To help alleviate the problem, users have switched off background data for the app, which you should do too. Google is yet to come up with a fix.

"We apologize for the inconvenience this issue has caused to our users. We are looking into this and at how to remedy the problem," a Google spokesperson told Mashable.