We already knew that Google+ is closing down, but following the discovery of a second data leak, Google has announced that it is bringing the closure forward.
The company has revealed that a bug in the Google+ API exposed the data of 52.5 million users, and as a result it is expediting the shutdown. Previously due to close in August 2019, Google+ will now be killed off in April 2019.
Google will now also be closing down the Google+ APIs earlier than previously planned — in just 90 days. The company explains that a “bug” was introduced in a software update in November, but says that it was fixed within a week. David Thacker part of the G Suite team says that “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”. He goes on to say:
With the discovery of this new bug, we have decided to expedite the shut-down of all Google+ APIs; this will occur within the next 90 days. In addition, we have also decided to accelerate the sunsetting of consumer Google+ from August 2019 to April 2019. While we recognize there are implications for developers, we want to ensure the protection of our users.
Details of the problem are a little sketchy, with Google saying that the “Google+ API was not operating as intended”.
Source: https://betanews.com/2018/12/10/google-plus-closure-accelerated/
Submitted by: Arnfried Walbrecht
Comments are closed.