Why Australia fines Google for data collection
The Federal Court of Australia fined Google $ 60 million for deceptively collecting its users' location data. The article of the Agi
Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, will have to pay a fine of $ 60 million, AU $ 42.7 million, for "making misleading claims to consumers about the collection and use of their personal location data on Android phones between January 2017. and December 2018 ". This was decided by the Australian Federal Court following a proceeding against Google by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (the Australian Commission for Competition and Consumers, also ACCC) in October 2019.
Although the location history was disabled, Google still collected the geolocation data of users (the estimate is 1.3 million accounts involved), targeting them ad hoc and personalized ads accordingly. The company accepted the payment proposal.
The company is facing an investigation, launched in February 2020, into the same practices in Europe as well, where it could face a larger fine if it is discovered that it has violated the General Data Protection Regulation (penalties can go up to 4 % of global annual turnover).
Not only. Earlier this summer, European consumer rights groups filed a new series of complaints against Google, accusing the advertising giant of misleading design that would lead users to accept extensive and invasive processing of their own. data. The Digital Service Act also stands out on Google's activity, which intends to increase the responsibility of Big Tech, with even higher fines (up to 6% of annual turnover).
In Australia, the Mountain View company has been accused of providing incorrect and partial information to users, saying that the only way the company collects geolocation data is Location History. However, there is another setting (web and app activity) that allows Google to obtain data on the location of each user. What's more, this is an activated default setting.
According to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, Google would have tricked users into believing that setting "location history" on their Android phones was the only way location data could be collected from it, when a function to monitoring web and application activity also allowed the collection and storage of local data.
According to the regulatory authority, from 2018 onwards Google has changed the methods of data collection by adapting to Australian legislation and making it easier and more intuitive to set up on the smartphone.
"This significant sanction imposed today by the court sends a strong message to digital platforms and other businesses, large and small, that they must not mislead consumers about how their data is collected and used," said Gina Cass-Gottlieb, president of the 'ACCC.
“We can confirm that we have agreed to resolve the historical conduct issue from 2017 to 2018 – a Google spokesperson told TechCrunch – we have invested heavily in making location information easy to manage and understand with industry-leading tools such as automatic deletion controls, significantly minimizing the amount of data stored. As we have shown, we are committed to continuous updates that give users control and transparency, while providing the most useful products possible ”.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/australia-google-multa-raccolta-dati-gps/ on Wed, 17 Aug 2022 05:41:28 +0000.