Google Exposed User Data, Feared Repercussions of Disclosing to Public

Apparently, Google exposed the private data of hundreds of thousands of users of the Google+ social network and then opted not to disclose the issue this past spring, in part because of fears that doing so would draw regulatory scrutiny and cause reputational damage. A software glitch in the social site gave outside developers potential access to private Google+ profile data between 2015 and March 2018, when internal investigators discovered and fixed the issue. Google plans to announce a sweeping set of data privacy measures that include permanently shutting down all consumer functionality of Google+. Google has concluded it needs tighter controls on several major products.