Google misled consumers over data collection: Australian watchdog

Australia’s federal court found Alphabet's Google misled some consumers about personal location data collected through Android mobile devices, the country's competition regulator said on Friday. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said it is seeking declarations and penalties from Google, though it did not specify an amount.

 

“This is an important victory for consumers, especially anyone concerned about their privacy online, as the Court’s decision sends a strong message to Google and others that big businesses must not mislead their customers,” ACCC Chair Rod Sims said in a statement. The case revolves around specific Google settings related to its location data collection, location history and 'web & app activity'.

 

The court found that Google wrongly claimed it could only collect information from the location history setting on user devices between January 2017 and December 2018.  A setting to control web and application activity, when turned on, also enabled Google to collect, store and use the data and was turned on by default on the devices.

 

Users were not informed that turning off location history but leaving the “Web & App Activity” setting on would allow Google to continue to collect data.