Security exploit that exposed user's data was kept secret by Google
Monday, October 8, 2018 at 6:18PM 
A bit of a shocker on a slow-news Monday and the eve of a major product announcement from Google has placed the search and advertising giant on the defensive. Google apparently exposed the information of hundreds of thousands of users of its Google + social network.
Google says that name, email address, occupation, gender, and age data of users were exposed even if these were set by users to be private, not public. The flaw, which Google says was not exploited by hackers, was open from 2015 to 2018. Granted, Google + is considered as a failed challenger to Facebook and Twitter, it lost steam rather quickly even as the majority of users continued to have accounts.
Exploits like these happen commonly, but companies are usually quick to disclose and reach out to customers so that they can take precautions, change their passwords or log off the serivces. It took a Wall Street Journal report for Google to respond. It appears the company was worried that disclosing the exploit would impact its reputation. Hiding the truth will likely hurt the company's reputation even more.