Google fined $60 Million for misleading location tracking settings on Android

guest · Aug 12, 2022

August 12, 2022

Google has been sanctioned A$60 million (around $40M+) in Australia over Android settings it had applied, dating back around five years, which were found — in a 2021 court ruling — to have mislead consumers about its location data collection.

Australia’s Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) instigated proceedings against Google and its Australia subsidiary back in October 2019, going on to take the tech giant to court for making misleading representations to consumers about the collection and use of their personal location data on Android phones, between January 2017 and December 2018.
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In April 2021 the court found Google had breached Australia’s Consumer Law when it represented to some Android users that the “Location History” setting was the only Google account setting affecting whether it collected, kept and used personally identifiable data about their location.

In actuality, another setting — called ‘Web & App Activity’ — also enabled Google to grab Android users’ location data and this was turned on by default, as the ACCC noted in a press release today.
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The regulator estimates that users of around 1.3 million Google accounts in Australia may have viewed a screen found by the Court to have breached the Consumer Law.

“This significant penalty imposed by the Court today sends a strong message to digital platforms and other businesses, large and small, that they must not mislead consumers about how their data is being collected and used,” said ACCC chair, Gina Cass-Gottlieb, in a statement.
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ACCC: Google LLC to pay $60 million for misleading representations

The Federal Court has ordered Google LLC to pay $60 million in penalties for making misleading representations to consumers about the collection and use of their personal location data on Android phones between January 2017 and December 2018, following court action by the ACCC.
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Google fined $60 Million for misleading location tracking settings on Android

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