Australian Federal Court fines Google $42.7 million for deceiving users

Australia's Federal Court has penalised Google for A$60 million (US$ 42.7 million), on accounts of misleading users and collecting personal location history without proper consent.

As per a recent report by Reuters, Google was charged with collecting personal location data through several users' Android smartphones from January 2017 to December 2018. 

The court stated that Google mislead users into believing that the location history setting is the only way Google could collect local data from users. 

However, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), smartphone features that monitored browsing activity and application usage also collected location data from users. ACCC predicts that about 1.3 million Australian Google account owners were affected in this way.  

In 2018, Google reportedly sent ACCC an email in which they stated that location information was simple and easy to understand, dismissing the matter as resolved. This led to ACCC filing proceedings against Google in October 2019.

Reuters reports that over the past year, Google has been involved in other legal matters in Australia, including a recent law that makes Google and Facebook pay media companies to run content on their platforms.