Google + to shut down amid data breach allegations

Google apparently came to about this in March and fixed it. But, Google allegedly did not make this public.

Google's social network platform G Plus (G+) will reportedly be shut down after it came to fore that a bug in it put data of its users at risk.

A security bug in the Google Plus used to allow users' non-public profile to be accessible to the developers even though the user gave permission to an app to access their public profile data.

Google apparently came to about this in March and fixed it. But, Google allegedly did not make this public.

The affected data is limited to static, optional Google+ Profile fields including name, email address, occupation, gender and age, Google said, as per a Reuters report.

"We found no evidence that any developer was aware of this bug, or abusing the API, and we found no evidence that any Profile data was misused," Google said.

This, in a way, is Google's Cambridge Analytica moment. Cambridge Analytica, a consulting firm, had harvested the sensitive data of millions of Facebook users without their explicit permission.

That scandal rocked Facebook, sending the company's stock price spiralling. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had to publically apologise for it.