Google LLC has expedited its plan to shut down the consumer version of Google+ after discovering a security flaw that had left 52.5 million users’ data temporarily exposed.

Ben Smith, the search giant’s vice president of engineering, revealed the bug in a blog post today. The disclosure comes two months after Google announced that it intends to pull the plug on its struggling social network. That move, too, was connected to the discovery of a security flaw believed to have rendered some users’ data vulnerable.

The two bugs are similar in nature. Both affected the People application programming interface, which Google has built to let outside app developers connect their services with Google+. Viewing public profile details requires a service to receive authorization from the user, but when the consumers affected by the security flaws granted the necessary permissions, they inadvertently gave developers access to nonpublic information as well.

Worse, this most recent vulnerability exposed the private profile information of those users’ contacts. Smith wrote that “apps with access to a user’s Google+ profile data also had access to the profile data that had been shared with the consenting user by another Google+ user but that was not shared publicly.”

Google didn’t specify what information was affected. But when it revealed the previous flaw in October, the company said the People API may have exposed users’ full names, email addresses, birth dates, gender, profile photos, places lived, occupation and relationship status.

On the plus side, so to speak, the data didn’t include more sensitive details such as passwords. Moreover, Google said that it has found no evidence to suggest any third-party developers misused the information. That’s likely thanks at least in part to the company’s fast response: The API allowed expanded access to profile details for just six days before it was fixed.

Still, a compromise involving 52.5 million users’ information amounts to a major privacy incident. That’s why Google has decided to move up the shutdown of Google+’s consumer version from August to April.

Photo: jonrussell/Flickr