Sundar Pichai.
(Image credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

After seven highly unsuccessful years, Google+ is effectively dead.

On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the private information of hundreds of thousands of the social media platform's users had been exposed to developers due to a software glitch, which the company discovered in March 2018 but decided not to disclose. According to the Journal, Google's legal team said in a memo that news of the breach would result in "immediate regulatory interest."

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However, it sounds like Google was ready to shut down the platform regardless of this issue, citing in its announcement the consumer version's "very low usage." For example, Google says that 90 percent of Google+ sessions last less than five seconds. Google+ will, however, be kept alive for businesses, who use it as a secure place for co-workers to communicate. The shutdown of Google+ won't happen immediately but will instead be a "wind-down" that ends in August 2019.

And with that, the platform once seen as a possible competitor to Facebook, but which quickly became synonymous with unfulfilled potential, was put out of its misery.

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Brendan Morrow

Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.