Google has on Monday, announced that it will be shutting down google-plus over a security breach that has to do with user privacy, an announcement that has surprised account holders.
Google said it will be shutting down the social network within its control, saying:
“There are significant challenges in creating and maintaining a successful Google-Plus product that meets consumers’ expectations.”
Stating further, the company said it came to this conclusion of shutting it down, after conducting a review of the third-party developer apps that build off of its platform. The review was part of what the corporation calls Project Strobe, “a root-and-branch review of third-party developer access to Google account and Android device data and of our philosophy around apps’ data access,”. This was according to a release post.
According to the statement, Project Strobe revealed a bug in the Google-Plus People API that put some user information at risk. The bug made information that users thought wasn’t publicly visible available to 438 apps that used the specific API. The information that was shared included occupation, gender and email address.
It was also said that the social media corporation “patched” that bug immediately after it was discovered in March 2018 and estimates that upwards of 500,000 user accounts were impacted.
In addition to eliminating Google-Plus, the company said it also plans to make it easier for users to see what of their information is available to an app in an easier more accessible way. The company is also going to change the cases in which it’s acceptable for an app to “seek permission to access your consumer Gmail data,”.
“Our goal is to support a wide range of useful apps, while ensuring that everyone is confident that their data is secure. By giving developers more explicit rules of the road, and helping users control your data, we can ensure that we keep doing just that,”