Google is shutting down its Plus social network four months ahead as originally planned because of a new security bug. This bug has reportedly affected around 52.5 million users and has made information available to third-party apps. This information exposed names, email address, occupations, and ages. This is the second bug of the software glitch, Google is facing. With this flaw, it was possible to obtain user information that was set as “private”.
According to Google, no third party used this vulnerability until it was discovered by the firm. Google did not compromise or give access to most sensitive information like passwords or financial information. The users who are affected by this flaw would be contacted by Google.
Credit where it is due, Google+ had tons of potential. Introduced in 2011 as an answer to the rising social network trend, Google+ was pitted against Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks. Google+ had some great features than Facebook. But it was never popular like Facebook or Instagram. Google Plus was a useful social network medium, thanks to Google search that indexed the posts, and it benefited the bloggers and content creators. If you log in to Chrome with your account in Google Plus, Google shows you results that you searched or created first based on your interests and interaction with the service.
Then what probably went wrong? Implementing Google+ comment/interaction system on YouTube did not go well with the users. While Facebook had a great run-down owing to a massive security breach that impacted around 50 million users, it had to reset 90M accounts overnight to patch up the issue, Google lacked tightening controls and failed to fix bugs. This is the second data leak.
Sun setting Google Plus is one way for Google and other search engines or social media apps to focus on “secured” networks that protect data. Third-party app developers accessing and analyzing user’s details are detrimental to the company’s security, trust, and privacy policies. So it’s good actually that Google is tightening regulations and focusing on cybersecurity issues. The firm is permanently closing Google+ API access within 90 days.
It would be interesting to see what Google comes up with after the closure of Google+.
Keywords: #GooglePlus #Google+ #Facebook #Google #GoogleAPI #GoogleBreach #GoogleDataBreach #GoogleSearch #CyberSecurity #Networking
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