The Google+ social network is roundly considered one of the company’s biggest failure, but a federal appeals court won’t let the company put it to bed so easily, reviving a 2018 lawsuit in which shareholders of Google’s parent company Alphabet accused Google of concealing serious security issues with the social network.
A Wall Street Journal article in October 2018 revealed that between 2015 and March 2018, a glitch meant that third-party developers could potentially access users’ private data. Google became aware of the issue then opted not to disclose it, according to the lawsuit.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco heard the lawsuit raised a “strong inference” that Alphabet, and Larry Page, “intentionally withheld the information from its quarterly investor reports.”
The company admitted to this in 2018, with internal memos stating that such a public reveal would attract “immediate regulatory interest” in the wake of the Cambridge Anaytica Scandal.
