Google shutters Google+ social network after WSJ reports a huge security lapse

Google
CEO Sundar Pichai speaks with reporters at the 2018 I/O
conference.
Greg Sandoval/Business
Insider

A software glitch caused Google to expose the personal profile
data of hundreds of thousands of Google+ users during the past
spring and managers there chose not to go public with the
information, according to a
report Monday in The Wall Street Journal.

In the wake of the publishing of the Journal’s story, Google
announced via a blog post late Monday morning that it
had closed down the social networking service for
consumers. 

According to the newspaper, the glitch enabled outside developers
to access the data between 2015 and March 2018. The glitch was
fixed and Google concluded that nothing nefarious was done with
the information.

The Journal reporters wrote that they reviewed a memo prepared by
Google lawyers and policy experts that warned that disclosing the
glitch would cause “immediate regulatory interest.”

They also noted that it would trigger comparisons with Facebook’s
scandal involving Cambridge Analytica. Google CEO Sundar Pichai
was brief on the plan after the decision not to inform the public
was made, according to the Journal’s sources.

 In Google’s blog post, while the company did not directly
address the Journal’s story, it said it had
undertaken an effort, called Project Strobe, that
would review third-party developer access to Google account and
Android device data.”

This story is developing…

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