NEW DELHI: Google is going to shut down the consumer version of Google+ over the next 10 months, the company writes in a blog post on Monday.

The move comes after the company discovered a security vulnerability that exposed the private data of up to 500,000 users. Google in a blog post wrote that it did not tell its users about the security issue when it was found in March because it didn’t appear that anyone had gained access to user information, and the company’s “Privacy & Data Protection Office” decided it was not legally required to report it.

The company discovered a bug in one of the Google+ People APIs. This allowed developers access to profile data like full names, email addresses, birth dates, gender, profile photos, places live, occupation, and relationship status. It also says it had found no evidence that outside developers were aware of the security flaw and no indication that any user profiles were touched.

The company also said that while their engineering teams have put a lot of effort and dedication into building Google+ over the years, it has not achieved broad consumer. Google+ currently has low usage and engagement: 90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds.

The company said that it is going to shut down the consumer version of Google+ over the next 10 months. The company still plans to keep the service alive for enterprise customers who use it to facilitate conversation among co-workers.

The decision is a part of Project Strobe, which is Google's internal investigation into third-party developer account access to Google and Android products.

Earlier according to a report from The Wall Street Journal, this bug existed from 2015 through March 2018, and Google later confirmed that it patched the bug in March 2018 after it discovered its existence.