Google to shutdown Google+ in April 2019 over second data breach


Google+

Google in November discovered a bug affecting a Google+ API and said that it fixed it within a week of it being introduced. Google says that there was no evidence that the app developers that inadvertently had this access for six days were aware of it or misused it in any way.

However, thanks to the discovery of this bug, Google has decided to expedite the shut-down of all Google+ APIs; this will occur within the next 90 days. In addition, it also decided to accelerate the shutdown of consumer Google+ from August 2019 to April 2019. Google testing revealed that a Google+ API was not operating as intended.

Google has confirmed that the bug impacted approximately 52.5 million users in connection with a Google+ API. With respect to this API, apps that requested permission to view profile information that a user had added to their Google+ profile—like their name, email address, occupation, age were granted permission to view profile information about that user even when set to not-public.

Google says that it has begun the process of notifying consumer users and enterprise customers that were impacted by this bug. It will shut down all Google+ APIs in the next 90 days. This means that Google+ will now shut down in April 2019 instead of August 2019.

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