Google+ for Consumers to Be Shut down Because of a Data Breach

Google+ is on its way out.

Definitely not the most popular social media platform in the world, Google+ rolled out in 2011, and by 2015, it had about 111 million active users. That might sound like a pretty large number, but it really isn’t when compared to the likes of Tumblr, Facebook or Instagram. It looks like, Google+ had another problem apart from a low userbase, and that’s a pretty serious bug that exposed private data to third-party developers. Apparently, this data included genders, occupations, email addresses, and the ages of Google+ users, and while the bug was patched immediately after it was discovered in March, it’s been around since 2015.

There is a silver lining.

Google says that it hasn’t found any evidence of abuse, which means that nobody really took advantage of the breach. However, that doesn’t mean that Google+ is getting a free pass. The tech giant has actually decided to shut down the service via a 10-month “wind-down” period. This period will end next August when the service will retire for good. However, it’s worth noting that we’re only talking about the consumer version. Enterprise users will still be able to access the service. During these upcoming 10 months, Google will inform users of ways to download or migrate their data to other platforms.