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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

 

[DinohScene]

Hey @AtsuNii!
1 down!! one to go!!

 

[RickBruiser]

Myspace is still champ of survival.

 

[the_randomizer]

I honestly forgot about it until today, huh.

 

[Noctosphere]

In all honnesty, i can say this...
Never heard of it

 

[TheZander]

My 1 Google+ pal who was most likely a spam bot is going to really miss me. Where is going to read my message I make every two years saying "What's up Google+ers". This is really the end of an era, a forgettable era but an era none the less.

 

[DuoForce]

Good
riddance

 

[guily6669]

This is one of the first services I disable...

 

[jumpman17]

I thought this shut down awhile ago. Or was that a different Google social media thing?

 

[Captain_N]

How about not giving anyone access to that personal data huh google? Talk about big bother. Developers dont need it to develop an app.

 

[MegaGenesis]

"Google+ is shutting down"

Ok, why is this a bad thing?

 

[osaka35]

I tried to use google+, but it was just so...unintuitive, boring, and bereft of stuff do

 

[kingfrost]

How about we stop pretending like every social network doesn't get hacked at least once a week?

Or every online retailer, game service, etc etc. It's not safe to put any of your personal or financial information anywhere on the internet.

It's so convenient though.

 

[_v3]

Even better: they will remove the entire comment section (to replace it with a continous loop of video ads with sound)

That sounds horrifying, don't give them any ideas.

 

[MarkDarkness]

A useless, completely pointless network that they thought they'd make a winner by means of "I'll throw enough money at it". Never panned out, they still insisted, and now this. Thanks.

 

[AlanJohn]

Good riddance. That thing made YouTube a nouisance.

 

[nWo]

Well, I'm not even a regular user, but those are bad news for the users of Google+. Although I never even once met someone who used or talk about it, but it's a sure thing there are some people who where there daily.

For me it's no loss at all. You want to talk about a big loss? Miiverse. Man. When they shut it down, it was a hard punch to the gut.

 

[HinaNaru Cutie]

FUCKING FINALLY!!! THEY'RE FINALLY LEAVING!! i am SO dang happy about this news! I've been waiting for this piece of garbage to be taken down since day one! So many messed up, disgusting, retarded people on there!! GEEZ! lol sorry, so hyped about this! Also sorry for the users who used this pile of crap, sorry >_>"..it wasn't that great..i rather use discord. And i don't have discord yet.

 

[MaxiBash]

Select your choise of song:
1. Solviet Russia
2. Crab Rave
3. Fortnite Default Dance except Despacito (Extended)

 

[CuriousTommy]

I am going to be a super minority on this, but I am actually going to miss google+. it seemed to be a hotspot for Linux developers to share their thoughts.

 

[JimmyCall]

I used to love Google+ at the start but they ruined it when they decoupled it from all other Google/Youtube accounts. It then become a copy site, mirrored content and lacklustre.

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I'm mostly amazed that Google+ has so many users. Haven't heard of it in years.

It attracted nerd/geek crowd, Especially tech news.