EFF: The Google+ Bug Is More About The Cover-Up Than The Crime
The Google+ Bug Is More About The Cover-Up Than The Crime Earlier this week, Google dropped a bombshell : in March, the company discovered a “bug” in its Google+ API that allowed third-party apps to access private data from its millions of users. The company confirmed that at least 500,000 people were “potentially affected.” Google’s mishandling of data was bad. But its mishandling of the aftermath was worse. Google should have told the public as soon as it knew something was wrong, giving users a chance to protect themselves and policymakers a chance to react. Instead, amidst a torrent of outrage over the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal, Google decided to hide its mistakes from the public for over half a year. What Happened? The story behind Google’s latest snafu bears a strong resemblance to the design flaw that allowed Cambridge Analytica to harvest millions of users’ private Facebook data. According to a Google blog post , an internal review discovered a bug in one ...