After last November’s ‘fiasco’ when 52 million accounts were exposed in full detail, Google is speeding up the Google+ removal process. The failed experiment for a Social Media platform has come to an end as far as personal accounts are concerned. Initially, the company had announced that the service would shut down in August 2019. What forced her to hastily change the date to March 2019?
Just for the Record
It all started with the assumption that Google had, and still has, access to the content of e-mail for each and every Gmail account. Not only is it Google that follows this practice, but also many of its partner companies. Suffice it to say that profit is the main objective here. Google acquires, not unjustly, its classification as a company that places profit as its first priority, thus dismissing the protection of users’ personal data. I personally do not reckon that Google does not care. It is just that Google’s system of services has been designed to gather as much data as possible for each Internet user. That is what it sells to advertising agencies anyway: “I know everything about everyone so my targeted ads are more productive.” For those who have any doubts about this, I would suggest they take a look at myactivity.google.com
Google “is promising” to stop reading our mail. Furthermore, after data leaking from Google+, the company set up a special committee to further investigate the magnitude of the problem. This attempt is called the Strobe Project. The committee reached reasonable conclusions. First of all, Google+ showcases very low performance and therefore it is not worth allocating extra resources to maintain it. Although it uses a somewhat mild language, the committee accepts that the APIs it uses exhibit enough bugs that actually leave users exposed. It even points out that our mobile numbers, SMS, Contacts, and the list are not safe either.
Something is off Here
So, the committee, or Project Strobe, goes even further. In order to protect its users, especially those using Android devices, it will limit the ability of applications to access sensitive user data. What is particularly bizarre here, however, is that it places emphasis on applications that request access to our mobile number and contacts. The decision is simple; instead of investing time and money in a failed application, let us take advantage of this fact, announce the risks stemming from our very own APIs, and on that very basis, further restrict applications from other companies, mainly on Android phones.
I would suggest we look at this again because something does not seem to be entirely correct. Do not listen to me. Please go on and read the announcement for yourselves:
Would that mean that Viber or other applications that I have given permission to access my mobile number and contacts, for example, will not be able to? And that will be decided by Google?
So, even though the problem was identified in the Google+ API which essentially made the items that users had set as private visible, Google is trying to limit communication and IM applications that I do not encounter any problems with whatsoever!
On top of this all, Google will decide on the IM application that will have access to my number and Contacts. Let me guess that these will all be applications already installed by Google?
Conclusions
The details of this announcement still remain a grey area. Before we jump to more conclusions, we expect to see Google’s moves in the coming months. We have mentioned in a previous article that Google has already been charged with 4.2bn in fines for monopoly practices. Article 4 of Project Strobe’s announcement is more like preparing a line of defense against new accusations of monopoly practices, much more than a security announcement about data that Google is handling.
What is certain is that the company is accelerating the shutting down of the Google+ app by a six-month period. In a next article, we will go through users’ feeling of “numbness” toward the unrestricted personal data violation by major Internet companies as well as the investment of the latter in fancy mottos like “I have nothing to hide.”
I am Michael and this is only my opinion.
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