It’s not just Facebook who has some major bugs to work out in order to regain consumers trust. Just this month, an article published that Google is having the exact same problems through their Google+ platform.

The tech giant found out that a bug in the software was allowing for third party app developers to access data for users who opted in, but also of their friends through Google+. This incident is eerily similar to the position Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg found themselves in earlier this year. Upon this information becoming public, Google immediately shut down consumer access to Google+ and their VP of engineering says there is no evidence now that shows any developers were misusing the bug in the system.

Google did not initially disclose this issue to the 500,000 plus users affected and they don’t have to. There are no federal laws that enforce tech companies to disclose their leaks, but there are state laws that can require more transparency.

The larger question at hand is are Google and Facebook too big to secure? Should there be new limitations put in place that preserve data security for consumers? This is something the FTC will be looking into and quite frankly, we all need to be diligent and monitor our online activity. In the meantime, we need to ask our Attorney General to look into these matters and urge for a full investigation of big tech companies and their practices.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/08/google-plus-security-breach-wall-street-journal