Google’s decision to shut down Google+ was inevitable.
On October 8, Google confirmed that it is shutting down Google+ after a breach revealed that private profile data of at least 500,000 users may have been exposed to hundreds of external developers. It also added that after a review highlighted that there are major challenges in maintaining their ‘social network’ and that because of low usage, Google+ consumer version of the site was decided to be shut.
While this resulted in a lot of jokes, notably on Twitter, enquiring whether Google+ was still around, it illustrates the struggles that Google had to face on social media. The joke underscores an important point. Google is doubling down its focus on “Search”. According to Sanghamitra Khatu, Founder of The Tribal Box, “Google’s main line of business is the search engine and social networking wasn’t its focus. Hence Google+ never received the business focus that was needed.”
In some ways, Google itself has admitted indirectly that enterprise users adopted it but not the mass and hence, the industry is not surprised at this move. While there is no official number on the total Google+ users, the search giant counts its 2.5 billion Gmail users as every Gmail address automatically has a corresponding Google+ account.
By shutting it down, Google wants to keep the data intact.
Sidharth Rao, Angel Investor, Co-Founder & CEO of WebChutney, “Considering that they (Google) found a vulnerability that exposed user data through their APIs, they would have thought its not worth it for them to invest time, resources and money in continuing to build, maintain since it lags far behind Facebook.”.
Others like Krupesh Bhat, co-founder, LegalDesk, a legaltech start-up stated that the product was dead long before and the data breach was just an excuse.
While on the one hand, from a corporate perspective, Google’s decision to pull the plug was the right one, for users it continues to raise concerns around data security. Rama Krishna Kuppa, Founder & CEO, ONGO Framework, stated that the software glitch has given external developers access to millions of profile data. Google has maintained that none of the thresholds it requires to disclose a breach were met after reviewing the type of data involved, whether it could identify the users to inform, establish any evidence of misuse, and whether there were any actions a developer or user could take to protect themselves.
According to Pankit Desai, Co-founder & CEO, Sequretek, for consumers this is another hit and a possible awakening that they need to be careful about the role social media plays in their life and how much information is being shared on these platforms and the fact that they exercise very little control over how this information gets used or abused.
Others say that this breach is serious and draws comparison to Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica data leak.
Some in the industry feel positive about Google pulling the plug.
“It promises to strengthen the security and privacy and demonstrates that as leaders in the digital industry there is a need to recommit on this so that the next billion internet users adopt technology with confidence,” said Manish Jha, Founder, former vice president of ESPN Mobile and NFL who is now CEO of Saveyra, a visual communication app.