Farewell Google+

In December 2018, Google announced they were shutting down Google +, their social networking platform, due to low usage. Launched in 2011, it was meant to be a social layer across all of Google’s products, an alternative to Facebook for businesses. However, Google+ was never able to garner a mass audience and was broken into separate products in 2015.

While the initial shutdown was scheduled for August 2019, the shutdown has been moved up because of a second security breach. You can now expect your Google+ pages to be shut down and Google to start deleting your content on April 2nd.

The process of deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts, Google+ Pages, and Album Archive will occur over the course of a few months and content may remain online through this time. For example, users may still see parts of their Google+ account via activity log and some consumer Google+ content may remain visible to G Suite users until consumer Google+ is deleted.

Some key changes to keep in mind:

• You are now no longer able to create new Google+ profiles, pages, communities or events.
• If you’re a Google+ Community owner or moderator, you may download and save your data for your Google+ Community. Beginning in March, additional data will be available for download, including author, body, and photos for every community post in a public community.
• If you sign in to sites and apps using the Google+ Sign-in button, these buttons will stop working but may be replaced by a Google Sign-in button. You’ll still be able to sign in with your Google Account wherever you see Google Sign-in buttons.
• If you’ve used Google+ for comments on your own or other sites, this feature will be removed from Blogger by February 4th and other sites by March 7th. All your Google+ comments on all sites will be deleted starting April 2, 2019.
• If you’re a G Suite customer, Google+ for your G Suite account should remain active. You can expect a new look and new features soon.

Nothing needs to be done unless you want to save the images, videos and other content that you have shared. You can download an archive of all your Google+ data at once, including your Google+ circles, Communities, Streams, and +1’s by following these simple steps:

1. Sign into your Google account, then navigate to Google’s Download your Data page. Your available Google+ data will be preselected
2. Click Next
3. Choose a file type
4. Choose how you want your data delivered. Choices include sending a download link via email or adding to Drive, Dropbox or Microsoft OneDrive
5. Click Create archive

Note: If you want to download Google+ Pages content, sign in as your Google+ Page.
The deletion of Google+ will NOT impact your main Google account. Your main Google account is associated with many features, including Gmail, YouTube, Drive, Maps, and most importantly, Google My Business. The social network of Google+ was simply one of them.

If you are an Academy Member with an Academy website, we will be removing any reference to Google+ and the link from your website over the coming weeks.

Rita Chaires

Director, Web and Online Marketing Services
American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc.
9444 Balboa Avenue, Suite 300
San Diego, California 92123
Phone: (858) 453-2128
www.aaepa.com