by Jason Snell
Google+ leaks data; service to be sent into the west
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the Google+ social network exposed the personal data of up to half a million users. As CNET reports:
Google said it found the bug as part of an internal review called Project Strobe, an audit started earlier this year that examines access to user data from Google accounts by third-party software developers. The bug gave apps access to information on a person’s Google+ profile that can be marked as private. That includes details like email addresses, gender, age, images, relationship statuses, places lived and occupations. Up to 438 applications on Google Plus had access to this API, though Google said it has no evidence any developers were aware of the vulnerability.
The good news is, not a lot of people use Google+, which was Google’s attempt to wedge itself into a social-media space occupied by Facebook and Twitter. It didn’t work, and Google admitted as much today, when it announced that it has “decided to sunset the consumer version of Google+.”
Sunset as a verb means what you might think it means. It’s moving to a farm upstate. It’s going to a better place. It’s following Frodo to Valinor, the Undying Lands across the sea to the west. Where does the sun set? Where Frodo is, probably happy and playing with your childhood pets every day.1 It is an ex-service.
Google+ will survive as an enterprise product, apparently.
- Remember when they sunset Joe Pesci in “GoodFellas”? Oh, n— ↩