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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

 

[DrasticGray]

google plus never had a chance, it's timing was too bad.

 

[CallmeBerto]

I could've sworn google+ died years ago so this news confused me to see.

It was quite the failed venture. All google+ really did was make YouTube more annoying.

Yeah no kidding, I forgot this was even a thing.

 

[Vallamaria]

MySpace needs to be next, followed by Facebook.

I'm amazed that MySpace even still exists in this day and age or that people still use it. Because for the past decade I haven't heard nor seen anyone mention it.

 

[Jayro]

I bet all 13 Google + members are gonna be pissed.

 

[eherrera322]

Just deleted my account after reading this. Thankfully doesn’t affect past youtube comments or functions. Really only used it to talk to 3 high school buddies.

 

[ninjistix]

and who said monday's were bad

 

[DKB]

Good fucking riddance. Shit was such a joke.

 

[m_babble]

Good riddance.

 

[Deleted User]

The fact that they were aware of the security breach and did nothing to inform users just to maintain a positive public image is particularly scummy of them.

Don't think I used Google+ for anything, so I can't really say that I'll miss it. How Google handled the situation is what gets me, more than anything else.

 

[matpower]

We can all learn a thing from this: Trust no company with your data.

Even fancy Google who people love to praise about them being the good guys and never doing anything wrong can't keep it together and are as bad as Facebook.

 

[FAST6191]

Pity. It was nice for finding information on youtube accounts.

 

[R0B0T0]

could've

I’m amazed that someone actually wrote this correctly for once.

 

[Deleted member 445482]

But the thing is YouTube's comment section runs on google plus so the comment section will break.

 

[kuwanger]

So, how different was this from the recent Facebook hack?

 

[Darth Meteos]

░░░░░███████ ]▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ Bob built an army.
▂▄▅█████████▅▄▃▂ \☻ This tank & Bob shut down Google+
Il███████████████████]... ▌\︻╦╤─ Copy and Paste this all over
◥⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙▲⊙◤.... / \ GBATemp if you are grateful for Bob

 

[KingVamp]

I honestly forgot what the Bob meme was about and now I remember...

 

[coolcono]

I used it quite a bit for their groups and I can be a bit more candid than on facebook because nobody knows me there.

 

[The Catboy]

Literally no one cares

 

[HideoKojima]

Anyone knows how can we change YouTube profile pics now? (yes they made us go to Google + for us to change the damn YouTube profile photo) RIP Google+. Btw all social media shit is a hidden way to collect data about consumer trends to better target them with products and stuff in case you don't know.

 

[zeveroth]

There is a Lamborghini related group that posts pictures on there. That is all I've use it for over the last 3 or so years now. I tried to like it when it first came out. It only took about three days to realize that Google Plus wasn't worth my time. At least I'll get close to another year of those pics .