June 13, 2025 | New Delhi:
Google on Thursday resolved a brief but widespread outage that disrupted several major online platforms, including Spotify, Discord, Snapchat, and a range of Google services such as Gmail, Drive, and Meet. The disruption lasted for a few hours and affected users across multiple regions globally.
The outage began in the early afternoon (U.S. Eastern Time), with users reporting difficulties in accessing services powered by Google Cloud. According to outage monitoring platforms, thousands of complaints were recorded within minutes, pointing to issues with login authentication, page loading, and data synchronization.
Services impacted included not only Google’s own applications but also third-party platforms that rely on Google Cloud for backend operations. Popular apps like Spotify and Discord experienced partial or full service disruptions during the incident.
In an official statement, Google confirmed that the disruption was caused by a fault in its Identity and Access Management (IAM) system—a component responsible for managing authentication and user permissions across cloud-hosted services. The company stated that corrective measures were promptly implemented and that normal operations were restored by late evening.
“All impacted services have been fully restored. We have identified the root cause and are taking steps to ensure it does not recur,” the company said.
The incident highlighted the increasing dependency of global digital infrastructure on centralized cloud platforms. Experts noted that even a short-lived outage can have a cascading effect, especially when a wide range of applications and services rely on a single cloud provider.
Industry observers also noted that this disruption may lead to renewed discussions around cloud diversification and infrastructure redundancy. While Google Cloud has maintained a strong reputation for reliability, the event underscores the critical nature of uptime guarantees for businesses operating in the digital economy.
Google Cloud, one of Alphabet Inc.’s fastest-growing business segments, generated more than $40 billion in revenue last year. The company is expected to release a detailed incident report after completing its internal investigation.
While the situation was swiftly resolved, the global scope of the outage has prompted businesses and IT professionals to revisit their cloud dependency models, especially in sectors like communications, streaming, and e-commerce.
This latest incident serves as a reminder of how crucial cloud infrastructure has become in daily operations, and how important it is for service providers and clients alike to prepare for unexpected technical failures.
