Google admits to second data leak, with 52.5 million users affected

Google will kill its failed social media platform four months earlier than previously expected after finding a second bug that exposed the data of another 52.5 million users.

After admitting a Google+ bug exposed the data of up to 500,000 accounts in October, saying it would shut down the platform, Google has penned another blog post, admitting to a much larger leak.

“We’ve recently determined that some users were impacted by a software update introduced in November that contained a bug affecting a Google+ API,” Google said.

“We discovered this bug as part of our standard and ongoing testing procedures and fixed it within a week of it being introduced.

“No third party compromised our systems, and we have no evidence that the app developers that inadvertently had this access for six days were aware of it or misused it in any way.”

In response to the second bug, the tech giant will axe the social media platform’s APIs within the next 90 days and move forward the shutdown of Google+ for consumers from August next year to April.

The admission caps off a tumultuous year for tech giants more broadly when it comes to data breaches, with Facebook previously revealing more than 50 million of its own accounts were compromised.

Google+ was the company’s attempt to crack into the social media market, but the platform has been unpopular for years, with 90% of user sessions lasting less than five seconds.

When it announced the shutdown in October, the company said the platform had failed to take off.

While our engineering teams have put a lot of effort and dedication into building Google+ over the years, it has not achieved broad consumer or developer adoption, and has seen limited user interaction with apps,” the giant said.

“The consumer version of Google+ currently has low usage and engagement: 90% of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds.”

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