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Google's failed attempt at a social media platform, Google+, will soon be coming to an end. In the aftermath of what appears to have been a major security flaw within Google+, the company ended up not disclosing the breach of information to its users. Google itself says the issue was quietly resolved in March 2018, but not before third parties obtained private user data off of Google+ profiles. Google claims that they didn't tell its users because they believed that without sufficient information on who was hacked, they found it wouldn't be useful to identify the public on the matter. Due to this, a memo from Google stated that revealing such a leak wouldn't be beneficial, and would raise concerns, akin to Facebook's own controversial leak.

Around 500,000 users were affected by this, potentially. The bug allowed for developers that had access to Google+'s API to access information of users that gave permission to the program. However, what wasn't known, was that on the given accounts, friends of that profile also had their data made available to developers, even if they made such data private.

In response to this, Google+ will be shutting down for regular users. Despite Google's efforts to keep the platform alive after it has been struggling since its launch in 2011, Google+ will not be available after August of 2019. Names, email addresses, occupation, gender, and age were all accessible, given that developers knew how to make use of the flaw.

To prevent such issues from occurring again, Project Strobe will be introduced. This method will better secure third party APIs with Google services, allowing for less data to be given to outside applications.

Source

 

[JavaScribe]

The only reason I had one to begin with was because it was integrated with YouTube comments, and it was the only way I could get notifications for that for a while.

Google+ in a nutshell.

 

[weatMod]

i'd say that's a huge plus for social media as a whole.

it was mtiny plus a HUGE plus would be if all social media shut down

 

[chartube12]

I got an email from google tonight. They have opened a multiple topic forum with multiple sub topics. Their new goal is be one forum to rule them all. A forum for everyone and everything.

 

[RedoLane]

it was mtiny plus a HUGE plus would be if all social media shut down

Whoooooosh

 

[Superman321]

Google+ ?
What's that?

A Social media by Google, but it failed.

 

[Asia81]

A Social media by Google, but it failed.

it was ironic

 

[Superman321]

it was ironic

Oh. Sorry

 

[MaxiBash]

A Social media by Google, but it failed.

I'm sure the question was from r/whoosh