Google will close most of its failing social media platform Google+ and implement several new privacy measures after discovering that hundreds of thousands of users potentially had their personal data exposed because of a previously undisclosed software bug, the company announced Monday.
The bug, discovered in March during an internal company review, could have allowed outside software developers — or people posing as outside developers — to learn the names, email addresses, occupations, genders and ages of Google+ users.
Some of that qualifies as legally protected personally identifiable information, and its exposure could trigger scrutiny from federal and state regulators, including some who have probed Google before on similar issues.