Sky News 14 December 2020
Access to YouTube and Gmail services is returning to normal after Google services were hit by a global outage.
Monitoring website DownDetector noted a spike in reports of difficulties accessing platforms at around 11.30 GMT.
Google said at that time it was "aware of the problem" - adding that a "majority" of customers were unable to access services, also including Google Docs, Maps and Drive.
It announced shortly afterwards that an issue, reportedly linked to authentication, had been resolved in most territories and normal services were resuming where possible.
A statement received by Sky's sister channel CNBC read: "We expect a resolution for all users in the near future."
Google operates some of the world's most popular platforms - with Gmail the biggest for email with more than 1.5 billion accounts.
