Google has this time fallen trap to a data breach and the company is set to shut down its social media application Google+. This decision has been taken by the officials due to a second data breach at Google+. David Thacker, VP, Product management, G suite, posted an update saying, “With the discovery of a new bug, we have decided to expedite the shut-down of all Google+ APIs; this will occur within the next 90 days. In addition, we have also decided to accelerate the sunsetting of consumer Google+ from August 2019 to April 2019. While we recognise there are implications for developers, we want to ensure the protection of our users.”

The bug has reportedly affected 52.5 million users in connection with a Google+ API. It has also been revealed that apps found access to profile information from Google + profiles of the user upon request. This is a trend amongst apps like Quora and Facebook, to sell data from their customers to third-party members

Sundar Pichai To Testify In Court

Google CEO Sundar Pichai will also reportedly testify before the House Judiciary Committee on 11 December 2018. According to reports, this hearing is a consequence of Google not sending Pichai to a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing in September, earlier this year. The hearing is about transparency, accountability and Google’s data collection practices. Since more than 50 million users’ data is at stake, the hearing will be important to how the Senate intelligence will further control and set data security standards at Google.

According to the update, Google found the bug after standard testing procedures. This disclosure has come one day before the hearing. Although the bug was discovered in March, this resulted in notable transparency concerns from the House of Representatives, Judiciary Committee. Google denies the fact about any evidence which proves that the user data was compromised to the third party and that the bug provided user data to developers.