Australian court orders Google to pay for misleading users

Australian court Google
FILE PHOTO: Letters spell the word "Alphabet" as they are seen on a computer screen with a Google search page in this photo illustration taken in Paris, France, August 11, 2015. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol/File Photo

(Reuters) -Australia’s competition watchdog said on Friday that Alphabet Inc’s Google unit was ordered by the country’s Federal Court to pay A$60 million ($42.7 million) in penalties for misleading users on the collection of their personal location data.

Court finds Google misled users

The court found Google misled some customers about personal location data collected through their Android mobile devices between January 2017 and December 2018. In court documents, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) accused Google of not explicitly getting consent or properly informing consumers of a 2016 move to combine personal information in Google accounts with browsing activities on non-Google websites. The Australian regulator alleged that Google used the combined data to boost targeted advertising – a key income source – and that it did not make clear to consumers the changes in its privacy policy.

Google also misled users into believing “location history” setting on their Android phones was the only way location data could be collected by it, when a feature to monitor web and applications activity also allowed local data collection and storage, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) said.

The watchdog, which estimates that 1.3 million Google account users in Australia may have been affected, started proceedings against the company and its local unit in October 2019.

Google took remedial measures in 2018, the regulator said.

In an emailed statement, Google said it had settled the matter and added it has made location information simple to manage and easy to understand.

The search engine giant has been embroiled in legal action in Australia over the past year as the government mulled and passed a law to make Google and Meta Platforms’ Facebook pay media companies for content on their platforms.

($1 = 1.4055 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Navya Mittal in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

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