New Google+ Bug Moves Site End Date Forward

Google is speeding up the closure of its unpopular social networking platform after discovering a new bug affecting over 52 million users. The tech giant announced in October that it would be shutting Google+ in August 2019. However, that date has been brought forward to April next year, while its APIs will disappear “within the next 90 days,” according to G Suite product management VP, David Thacker. The reason appears to be a newly discovered vulnerability in the API which the firm says impacts roughly 52.5 million users. “With respect to this API, apps that requested permission to view profile information that a user had added to their Google+ profile — like their name, email address, occupation, age — were granted permission to view profile information about that user even when set to not-public,” Thacker explained. “In addition, apps with access to a user's Google+ profile data also had access to the profile data that had been shared with the consenting user by another Google+ user but that was not shared publicly.”