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Google+

Also known as Google Plus

Lasted

7y 9m

28 June 2011  →  2 April 2019

Cause of death
Killed by scandal
with killed by indifference as a contributing factor
Made by
Google

Google disclosed a bug exposing private profile data and announced the consumer shutdown in the same breath.

Google+ was pushed onto users through every product Google owned, which generated enormous account numbers and very little actual use. The end came in October 2018, when Google revealed an API flaw that had exposed private profile fields and announced the consumer version's closure alongside it. The stated reasons were the security problem and low engagement together, which is a rare case of a company naming both the trigger and the underlying cause at once.

Sources

Last checked by a human on 2026-07-24