GOOG Alphabet Inc

By Michael Dabaie

Alphabet Inc.'s (GOOGL) Google said Monday it would accelerate the sunsetting of consumer Google+ and expedite the shut-down of all Google+ application programming interfaces after discovering a bug that potentially exposed some user information in November.

The bug didn't give developers access to information such as financial data, national identification numbers, passwords, or similar data typically used for fraud or identity theft, Google said.

Google in October said it would sunset the consumer version of social network Google+ and its APIs.

The company said it determined that some users were affected by a software update introduced in November that contained a bug affecting a Google+ API.

Google said it will shut-down all Google+ APIs within the next 90 days accelerate the sunsetting of consumer Google+ from August 2019 to April 2019.

The company said that the bug affected 52.5 million users in connection with a Google+ API. Apps that requested permission to view profile information that a user had added to their Google+ profile, such as their name, email address, occupation and age, were granted permission to view profile information about that user even when set to not-public.

In addition, apps with access to a user's Google+ profile data also had access to the profile data that had been shared with the consenting user by another Google+ user but that wasn't shared publicly.

Google said it discovered the bug as part of standard testing procedures and fixed it within a week of it being introduced. "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," the company said in a blog post.

The post can be found here: https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/expediting-changes-google-plus/

Write to Michael Dabaie at michael.dabaie@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 10, 2018 13:51 ET (18:51 GMT)

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