Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivers the keynote address at the Google I/O 2018 Conference at Shoreline Amphitheater on May 8, 2018 in Mountain View, Calif.

Google is shutting down Google+ for consumers following a disclosure on Monday that the private data of hundreds of thousands of users on its disappointing social network were potentially exposed because of a bug the Alphabet-owned company kept quiet. The Google+ social network that Google introduced back in 2011 suffered a major data breach that Google opted not to disclose to the public, reports The Wall Street Journal A Google+ software glitch provided outside developers with the ability to access private Google+ profile data from 2015 to March 2018. “Whenever user data may have been affected, we go beyond our legal requirements and apply several criteria focused on our users in determining whether to provide notice.”

But while Google was patting itself on the back, The Wall Street Journal reported that the company wanted to keep the breach quiet to avoid the incident leading to government action in response. However, one report said that when the tech giant first realized in March that account information of 500,000 users was potentially compromised, it wanted to keep mum for fear of government action. Exposed data included names, email addresses, birth dates, gender, profile photos, places lived, occupation, and relationship status.Phone numbers, email messages, timeline posts, and direct messages were not accessible.As a result of the breach, Google today announced that it is shutting down Google+ for consumers and introducing new privacy measures. A review of Google+ as part of the company's Project Strobe "crystallized what we've known for a while: that while our engineering teams have put a lot of effort and dedication into building Google+ over the years, it has not achieved broad consumer or developer adoption, and has seen limited user interaction with apps," Ben Smith, Google fellow and vice president of Engineering wrote in a blog post.
Google announces that it is shutting down its Google+ network for consumers after seven years due to "very low usage" and a software error, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, that potentially exposed the data of 500,000 users. Google+ will fully shut down in August 2019.