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Sunset on the Horizon for Google Plus
Google Plus was launched to compete with Facebook but failed to generate interest – now it’s being shut down following a data breach.
Google has announced it will shut down Google Plus following the discovery of security vulnerabilities that exposed up to half a million users’ data.
In a blog post published on 8th October, the company said the bug may have been present for up to two years, and that it discovered – and patched – the leak in March.
The California-based tech giant insisted that there was no tangible evidence that data was misused – or that the leak had been exploited. On Monday, the company avoided a massive class-action lawsuit in the UK after a High Court judge blocked the case.
The action was brought against Google by campaign group Google You Owe Us, led by Richard Lloyd, former Director of Which? and accuses the firm of illicitly gathering the personal information of more than 4 million iPhone users.
Data Concerns
Following the announcement, shares in Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc, were down 1.5% in response to growing data privacy concerns.
The Wall Street Journal revealed that Google decided not to disclose the issue with its API (application programming interfaces) amid fears this would spark heightened regulatory scrutiny.
In a blog post, it said: “We found no evidence that any developer was aware of this bug or abusing the API, and we found no evidence that any profile data was misused.”
During its investigation, Google said it reviewed the bug and assessed the type of data that could have been leaked. It also sought to establish whether users could be identified and informed or if any developer action had to be taken.
More than 438 applications made by other companies may have been affected by the vulnerability through the company API. These outside developers could have been granted access to usernames or email addresses, as well as other details such as age, gender or occupation.
The company said, however, that they did not have access to Google Plus posts, data from other Google accounts or phone numbers.
Google Plus Sunset
The social media platform aimed to break Facebook’s dominance of the market, however, it failed to mount a significant challenge – around 90% of its users access the site for less than five seconds.
A spokesperson for the company said there had been “significant challenges in creating and maintaining a successful Google+ that meets consumers’ expectations”.
Google said it will “sunset” the app and begin to wind down the consumer version of the website over the next 10 months.
Although the winding down process of the consumer product will begin, the company announced it will maintain a workplace platform for “enterprise users”.
“Our review showed that Google+ is better suited as an enterprise product where co-workers can engage in internal discussions on a secure corporate social network,” Google said.
“Enterprise customers can set common access rules, and use central controls, for their entire organisation. We’ve decided to focus on our enterprise efforts and will be launching new features purpose-built for businesses. We will share more information in the coming days.”
