Google+ will shut down 4 months early after Google discovered a second data breach affecting more than 52 million users
- On Monday, Google announced that it would be shutting down Google+ four months early after another data leak was discovered.
- The company said 52.5 million users were affected by this breach, which exposed information including names, email addresses, occupations, and ages between November 7th and November 13th.
- Between 2015 and 2018, Google+ had a similar data breach, which Google announced in October. It prompted the company to plan to shut down the social network in August 2019.
- Google+ will now shut down in April 2019.
On Monday, Google announced that it would be shutting down Google+ four months early after another data leak was discovered in November.
The company said 52.5 million users were affected by this breach, which exposed information including names, email addresses, occupations, and ages between November 7th and November 13th. Google said it has fixed the issue and will begin contacting those whose information has been compromised.
Read more: Google shutters the Google+ social network after Wall Street Journal reports a huge security lapse
Earlier this year, Google announced it would be shutting down Google+ after a Wall street Journal report revealed that a software glitch caused Google to expose the personal profile data of hundreds of thousands of Google+ users.
Previously, Google said it was shutting down the social network in August 2019. Now, that sunset date has moved up four months to April.
Google also said it would cut off API access to the product within the next 90 days.
In a blog post, the company said, in part: "We understand that our ability to build reliable products that protect your data drives user trust. We will never stop our work to build privacy protections that work for everyone."