Changes at Google

You perhaps saw the announcement that the social network Google+ will be discontinued.

Finding 1: There are significant challenges in creating and maintaining a successful Google+ product that meets consumers’ expectations.
Action 1: We are shutting down Google+ for consumers.

Google+ never made much of an impact and the company is known for being prepared to kill off unsuccessful products.

What you may not have seen is the other announcements in the release that improve security.

Finding 2: People want fine-grained controls over the data they share with apps.
Action 2: We are launching more granular Google Account permissions that will show in individual dialog boxes.

Finding 3: When users grant apps access to their Gmail, they do so with certain use cases in mind. 
Action 3: We are limiting the types of use cases that are permitted.

Finding 4: When users grant SMS, Contacts and Phone permissions to Android apps, they do so with certain use cases in mind. 
Action 4: We are limiting apps’ ability to receive Call Log and SMS permissions on Android devices, and are no longer making contact interaction data available via the Android Contacts API.

https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/project-strobe/