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The Federal Court has ordered internet giant Google to pay a $60 million penalty for misleading Android users about its collection and use of their personal location data.
Between January 2017 and December 2018, Google’s Android operating system suggested to some smartphone users that the “location history” setting was the only Google account setting affecting whether the tech giant kept and used personally identifiable location data. But there was another account setting called “web & app activity” that also let Google store and use data, which was on by default.
Google has been fined $60 million for misleading Android users about data collection.Credit:AP
The Federal Court found in 2021 that Google’s conduct breached Australian consumer law which prevents misleading or deceptive behaviour, but on Friday issued penalties totalling $60 million for the $US1.5 trillion ($2.1 trillion) company.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb, whose agency brought the litigation, said the “web & app activity” setting allowed Google to target ads to consumers even if they had “Location History” switched off.
“Some of the users who saw the representations may have made different choices about the collection, storage and use of their location data if the misleading representations had not been made by Google,” Cass-Gottlieb said in a statement.
The ACCC estimated that about 1.3 million Google users in Australia may have seen pages from Google that breached the law.
“Companies need to be transparent about the types of data that they are collecting and how the data is collected and may be used, so that consumers can make informed decisions about who they share that data with,” Cass-Gottlieb said.
Google, which is part of the conglomerate called Alphabet that also owns video-sharing site YouTube, and the ACCC made a joint submission to the Federal Court of a $60 million penalty in legal proceedings. It is the first public enforcement to come out of the Digital Platforms Inquiry.
Google took steps to address all the contravening issues by December 20, 2018, so users would no longer see the misleading screens.