Google says its Google+ social network has again left personal data unprotected. This time the personal data of 52.5 million users–including name, email address, occupation, and age–was exposed to developers.
“[A]pps that requested permission to view profile information that a user had added to their Google+ profile . . . were granted permission to view profile information about that user even when set to not-public,” wrote Google’s G Suite VP of product management, David Thacker, in a blog post.
Google said the data leak was live for six days between November 7 and November 13, and that it has no evidence suggesting that any developers actually accessed the data.
Google announced the first Google+ breach in October, saying at the time that it planned to shut down the social network in August 2019. With this new breach, Google has decided to shut Google+ down four months early in April 2019.
The company will continue to operate the enterprise version of Google+, which is part of its G Suite for businesses.
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