Google is Shutting Down Google+ in April 2019 Following Massive Data Exposure

Google will soon shut down its Google+ social network after searching for other bugs that detect the personal information of millions of customers for software developers.

In a blog post, Google said that 52.5 million people were affected by a bug in a November software update. The latest bug allowed app developers to access profile information not publicly marked.

In October, Google announced that we’d be sunsetting the consumer version of Google+ and its APIs because of the significant challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers’ expectations, as well as the reduced usage of the platform.

According to Google’s VP of engineering Ben Smith, the company undertook a security and privacy audit earlier this year called Project Strobe. Specifically, Google started looking at its API endpoints over concern developers could abuse them.

Google discovered a problem with the Google+ People API that could allow third-party developers to scrape optional profile information made available to your friends like name, email, occupation, and gender. Google says it does not see any indication that developers made usage of the bug before it was patched back in March, but it can’t be 100 percent certain.

However, Google+ will continue as a product for Enterprise users. This is the most popular use of the social network so far. Therefore, the company has decided that Google+ is better suited as an internal social network for companies, rather than a consumer product. Google will announce new Enterprise-focused products for Google+ in the near future.

With is second embarrassing privacy issue in two months, Google+ will shut down in April 2019. Two months ago, Google said it planned to shutter Google+ in August. Meanwhile, API access for developers will be shut down within the next 90 days.

Since buffer and other apps are keen to avoid a situation whereby posts start failing intermittently, they have made the decision to officially cease support for Google+ on January 25, 2019. They have now disabled new Google+ account connections as a preparation.

I like the journey of Google+ and I hope Google will launch something new in replacement of Google+ soon.