Sydney 12 August, Sydney : Sydney, Aug 12 : Federal Court in Australia on Friday ordered Google to pay more than 40 million dollars in penalties for false claims to consumers regarding the gathering and usage of the location information in Android phones.According to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) the data was gathered between January 2017 to December 2018.
The Court had previously ruled that Google violated the Australian Consumer Law by representing to certain Android users that the setting called “Location History” was the only Google account setting that impacted the extent to which Google stored, collected and utilized personally identifiable information regarding their location.
In reality, a different Google account setting called “Web and App Activity” also allowed Google to collect and store personally identifiable location information when it was turned on and it was enabled by default according to the ACCC stated in an announcement.
“This important penalty imposed by the Court sends a clear signal to digital platforms and other companies both small and large that they should not mislead consumers about the way their data is used and collected,” said ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb.
Personal location information is sensitive and crucial to certain consumers “some of the users who saw the representations might have made different choices regarding the storage, collection, and usage of their personal location information if these misleading representations were not created by Google,” Cass-Gottlieb added.
The ACCC estimated that users of 1.3 million Google accounts in Australia might have seen an image that was deemed by the courts to have violated the Australian Consumer Law.
Google has taken remedial measures and had rectified all of the violations by the 20th of December this meant that users would no longer see the false screens.
“Companies should be open about the forms of information they collect as well as the way in which the data is gathered and used, in order to let consumers make informed choices regarding who they share the information with,” Cass-Gottlieb noted.
The ACCC initiated the proceedings against Google and Google Australia in October 2019.
In April 2021 in April 2021, the Federal Court found that Google had violated the Australian Consumer Law.
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