Google To Shut Down Plus Program Early

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — Google announced Monday it would close up shop on its Google+ social network long before its planned closure after finding more bug issues that revealed private pieces of customer data in the millions were channeled to software developers.

The bug impacted 52.5 million people due to a November software update.

The testing indicated that the program was not operating as intended. The search engine giant fixed the bug and started an investigation into the matter. Among other findings, the probe showed that apps requesting permission to view profile information such as name, email address and occupation were granted access, Vice President of G Suite Product Management David Thacker said in a blog post.

The bug did not give access to financial data.

In October, the company announced it would sunset the Google+ consumer version and its APIs because of the significant challenges involved in maintaining "a successful product that meets consumers’ expectations, as well as the platform’s low usage," Thacker added.

Since then, it was determined that some users were affected by a software update introduced in November that contained a bug affecting a Google+ API. This bug was part of the standard and ongoing testing procedures. It was fixed within a week of it being introduced.

The company stressed no third party compromised the systems.

With the discovery of this new bug, the company has decided to expedite the shutdown of all Google+ APIs, which will occur within the next 90 days. In addition, it has 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," Thacker explained.

Image via Shutterstock