Reasons behind shutting down Google+

Last year in the month of October, Google reveals that it is going to shut down one of its social media platforms Google+, due to the security breaches that affected around 500,000 profiles using Google+.

The bug present in Google+ had the power to reveal users personal information that had a major impact on 525,000 million users approximately and finally it decides to close G+ on April 2, 2019.

Of course, it is bad news for everybody. But Google claims that they have decided to shut down Google+ because of low usage and the challenges they faced to work as per the customer expectations. Majority of the users who logged in to Google+ account stayed only for 5 seconds or less which is too low. This also proves, the platform was less interactive and its features never gained popularity among its customers. The company plans to retain the service active for enterprise customers so that they can communicate with their co-workers.

Some important dates to be noted by G+ customers-

1. After 4th February 2019, no one will be able to create any new account, pages or communities involving Google+.

2. By 7th March 2019, all the comments posted by Bloggers will be removed.

3. Google+ sign-in button will either stop working or will be replaced by Google-sign in button.

4. By 2nd April 2019, Google+ will shut down and will delete all the blogs, photos or videos that are archived in Google+.

Along with closure of Google+, the company has also announced new privacy policy for other Google services. Changes in Application Program Interface will put a limitation on developers for accessing data on Android devices and on Gmail Account. Moreover, the developers will also not be able to receive call log information and SMS consents on Android Devices and any contact interaction records will also no longer be available through the Application Program Interface of Android Contacts.

However, the service of G+ will still remain active for the business enterprises, after making some minor improvements on it, but for others this long 8 years journey will come to an end. Users will continue using Gmail Account, although Google is updating the user’s data policy for the email service.