One week after Facebook (see EUROPE 12107), it is Google’s turn to fall victim to a security breach. On Monday 8 October, the Wall Street Journal revealed that a security breach of the Google + social network, which has been online between 2015 and 2018, affected nearly 500,000 user accounts before being discovered by Google in March during an internal audit. Google has been repairing the failure without informing users.
European Justice Commissioner Věra Jourová believes this is "another reminder why the EU was right to go ahead with modern data protection rules". On Twitter, she regrets that "some of the big tech players are not eager to play fair without 'regulatory interest'".
Google confirmed the incident in a press release on Monday and then immediately announced the imminent closure of Google + to the general public.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the company apparently hesitated at the time to make this information available to the public in order to avoid suffering the same fate as Facebook, entangled in the Cambridge Analytica scandal at the same time (see EUROPE 11984).
Guy Verhofstadt, who heads the ALDE Group at the European Parliament, takes the view that, like Mark Zuckerberg in May this year (see EUROPE 12024), CEO Google Sundar Pichai should testify before the Parliament. "It’s time we tamed these tech monsters once and for all", he states on Twitter. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)