Google to shut down Google+ for consumers

Google has announced that it is shutting down Google+ due to low usage and engagement as well as a bug that has affected up to 500,000 accounts.

In a blog post, Google announced that shutdown of Google+ for consumers because “it has not achieved broad consumer or developer adoption, and has seen limited user interaction with apps.” The company added that the consumer version of Google+ has a low usage and engagement with 90% of Google+ user sessions only lasting less than 5 seconds.

Google also mentioned a security issue in the platform which was found during the company’s audit of Project Strobe – a root-and-branch review of third-party developer access to Google account and Android device data and of Google’s philosophy around apps’ data access.

The company said that they discovered a bug in one of the Google+ People APIs allowing users to grant access to their Profile data, and the public Profile information of their friends, to Google+ apps, via the API. The bug also meant that apps also had access to Profile fields that were shared with the user, but not marked as public.

According to Google, Profiles of up to 500,000 Google+ accounts were potentially affected and that up to 438 applications may have had access to private information including the user’s name, email address, occupation, gender, and age. Google, however, cannot confirm which users were impacted because Google+ keeps the API log data for only two weeks.

The bug was discovered and immediately patched in March 2018.

With the impending shutdown, Google is implementing a 10-month wind-down period which is slated for completion by the end of next August. Google will also provide consumers with additional information, including ways they can download and migrate their data.

While Google+ is sunsetting consumers, it will still be available for enterprise customers as Google deemed it more suitable as an enterprise product.

source: Google