Google+ has not had it easy — and that’s putting things in a kind way. After so many years of dwindling popularity, it’s unsurprising that the social media platform is going to shut down once and for all. That announcement came in large part to users’ information being hacked and subsequently exposed. While this may be good news for the few people using Google+, there are still concerns that exist regarding leaked private information.
As originally reported by The Verge this past Monday, Google+ has been dealt the blow of yet another data leak. This new leak has resulted in 52.5 million users being negatively affected by having sensitive information exposed. As a result of this tech-related blow, Google will be shutting down Google+ sooner than they had first announced. The closure had been planned for August 2019, but it’s now going to happen by April. Moreover, the API access to the platform will finally shut down in the next 90 days.
Google+’s new data leak has created a headache to the users affected by this. This leak will have their profile information revealed to many developers. The information in question includes age, email addresses, names, and occupations to those that have accounts on this social media platform. Not only that, but other apps could also access any profile data that had been previously shared with another user, yet had not been shared publicly.
Those from Google had previously revealed that there was a vulnerability that exposed the private data of users. While this had been found initially in March, the public did not learn of this problem until October. It had seemed at the time that Google had managed to manage this problem successfully. But now that this new bug has popped up to expose more private information of users, Google is trying to fast-track Google+’s closure. That way, users will be protected once more.
It’s clear that there are massive problems with Google+. Their multiple data leaks have only compounded the fact that the social media platform never managed to take off with users. The fact that it’s going to be shut down sooner than originally planned seems more like a sigh of relief than a disappointment to those that have accounts.
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