Google advances shutdown of Google+ after second data leak bug

SAN FRANCISCO - Google said Monday that it is accelerating the closure of its consumer version of the social network Google+ after a new bug was found to put user private data at risk.

Google decided to "sunset" the already little-used Google+ service and its APIs four months earlier than previously announced, because the company determined that "some users were impacted by a software update introduced in November that contained a bug affecting a Google+ API."

The bug was discovered during a standard checkup procedure and fixed within one week, Mountain View, California-based Google said.

"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," it added.

Google will suspend Google+ APIs within 90 days and brought the shutdown date of consumer Google+ from August 2019 to April 2019.

Google said the new vulnerability impacted 52.5 million users, who could have exposed to developers their profile information such as user name, email address, age and occupation.

A similar Google+ vulnerability was disclosed in October, which left its users' private and other sensitive information exposed to developers for three years, triggering widespread concern about the Internet company's handling of user data and its transparency policy.

Google later announced plans to phase out the consumer version of Google+ service for good.