The news has been doing the rounds for quite some time and Google plus fanatics are mourning its death. Google has officially declared that it will be shutting down Google plus indefinitely owing to declining usage and engagement. It added that 90 percent of the Google plus user sessions lasted less than five seconds, an alarming statistic that led the global tech giant towards this decision. The data itself speaks volumes about how the social networking site has fallen out of popularity.

While Google may float this as the only reason for the termination of its social networking forum, the ‘cat out of the bag’ thing was an internal probe which brought to light a massive data exposure of users to the tune of 500,000.

Google didn’t want this security issue to go public as it reasoned that it didn’t have any information that any user information was misused. The security breach may have revealed personal details about its users to potential hackers. However, internal commotion revealed that Google didn’t want to invite regulatory scrutiny to preserve its reputation.

This decision may add up as another failure on the part of Google after its pet projects such as Google Buzz and Google Notebook were scrapped after a few years post launch.

Google launched Google plus in 2011 to compete against Facebook et al. It seemed to go off well at first, but in course of time the software giant came to terms with the fact that it has failed to crack the Facebook juggernaut. It admits that it has failed to achieve broad consumer or developer adoption since its inception.

How personal data could have been compromised?

If you are a Google plus user, and you don’t know whether you are going to be affected by the latest security breach, then read on.

The internal analysis showed that a faulty application programming interface (API) spilled a lot of user information than they should have. Personal data could have been leaked under certain circumstances. In the privacy settings page, if you see that your personal information is not limited to yourself and is visible to circle of friends or friends of friends in “ extended circles”, then you may have risked your information.

The problem snowballs further when somebody in your friend list installs a third party Google plus app, which by default can see the users in your friend’s circles. The faulty API app added fuel to fire when it let other third-party apps see everything that users can see. Google may have plugged the loophole, but it was a good move on its part to stay away from further miseries by closing down Google plus altogether.

However, Google plus remains open for enterprise users that use Google’s G Suite of applications. Google found out that the Google plus is better suited as an internal social network for companies.

Google is working on security controls as well as low user engagement that have arisen due to privacy concerns. It is also fine-tuning the rules about which apps can get access to Gmail data and limiting Android apps checking text messages, contact lists and call logs.

Author Bio

Nagendra Singh is a SEO Expert in India and the Chief Search Strategist at SEO Corporation, the leading Digital  Marketing Agency of India. Nagendra Singh is well versed with the changing global SEO market and has crafted impeccable SEO and SMM campaigns for a number of brands around the world. A strong believer of improvisation, his strategies are focused on maximising incoming traffic to the website and lead generation.