Google Accelerates Google+ Shutdown After Second Data Leak

Google's repeated attempts to get aboard social media train may have never bore fruition, but earlier this October, the company's only social network of sorts became more of a liability, an albatross around its neck, when it disclosed a bug in Google+ developer API (originally uncovered in March) that could have affected as many as 500,000 users, inadvertently revealing their non-public information, while also taking the opportunity to announce that it would be shutting down Google+ for regular users (it will be still available for G Suite corporate customers, something like Workplace by Facebook) effective August next year. But a new security hole, which it found last month, has expedited its plans to sunset the service by April 2019, four months in advance.

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According to a new announcement made on its blog, the latest vulnerability affects 52.5 million users, and stems from an update to the platform which was made last month that accidentally included another software flaw in the API, allowing developers using Google+ to view a user's name, age, job, email address, gender and more even if they were set to private. "We discovered this bug as part of our standard and ongoing testing procedures and fixed it within a week of it being introduced. No third party compromised our systems, and we have no evidence that the app developers that inadvertently had this access for six days were aware of it or misused it in any way," the company said.

As a social network, Google+ has had a loyal user base, however small, but has struggled to attract new users like the way its rivals Facebook, Instagram and others have. Plus, Google's delayed public disclosure of the previous bug for fear of "immediate regulatory interest" and reputational damage in the wake of Facebook's Cambridge Analytica data scandal, a fact that only came to be known after The Wall Street Journal preempted Google's announcement, raised significant transparency concerns about what else could the search giant be covering up, prompting the company to shut it down. "We understand that our ability to build reliable products that protect your data drives user trust," wrote Google, adding, "We will never stop our work to build privacy protections that work for everyone."