Google to Shut Down Google+ After Major March 2022 Privacy Bug That It Didn't Disclose

Google has said it is shutting downwards the consumer version of its ain social networking site Google+ due to depression usage and a problems discovered in March last year that could leak the data of well-nigh half a million of its users.

"The consumer version of Google+ currently has depression usage and appointment: 90 pct of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds," said Google, which is headquartered in Mount View in northern California.

Google to Shut Down Google+ After Major March 2018 Privacy Bug That It Didn't Disclose

Google last nighttime said it is going to close Google+ in the coming months seven years after information technology was launched as a social networking site of its own proper noun brand. The demise of Google+ besides came as a result of a bug discovered last twelvemonth merely best-selling for the beginning time by Google on Monday, and the flaw in one of its Google+ "People APIs" exposed some private user data to third-party developers, including such information as the occupations, genders, ages, and email addresses of many users.

"We discovered and immediately patched this bug in March 2018," Google said, but the flaw, which has existed since 2015, could potentially affect up to 500,000 Google+ accounts. "Our analysis showed that up to 438 applications may have used this API," Google said. Notwithstanding, "We found no evidence that any programmer was aware of this issues or abusing the API, and nosotros found no prove that any Profile information was misused."

The Google+ vulnerability was discovered at a time that almost coincided with the notorious privacy leakage scandal of the world's largest social media network Facebook, which has been widely criticized for its failure to protect its users' individual data.

Facebook has been nether heavy scrutiny most its privacy policy afterwards a British data mining firm Cambridge Analytica was accused of illegally accessing the data of 87 million Facebook users without their noesis. Facebook CEO Marker Zuckerberg was summoned to a hearing in US Congress in April this yr to explain the firm's security measures and how it handled users' privacy.