Google to pay $60 million fine over a legal dispute with Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

Google has agreed to pay $60 million in fines to settle a protracted legal dispute with Australia’s competition authority over its misrepresentations about the collection of users’ personal location data.

In April of last year, the Federal Court of Australia ruled that Google had broken consumer laws by leading some local clients to believe the company wasn’t collecting personal information about their whereabouts using mobile devices with Android operating systems.

The issue was whether it was sufficiently clear that Google would still collect and access location data when a user’s location history was disabled but their internet and app activity was enabled and one of Google’s apps was used. The company was also found to have broken two more consumer laws, one involving conduct that could mislead the public and the other involving making misleading claims about the performance capabilities of the service.

The ruling, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, sent a clear message to digital platforms that companies must be open and honest with their users about how their data is used. The parties had agreed that a $60 million fine was “fair and reasonable,” according to a brief Federal Court hearing on Friday, and a joint application had been made before Justice Thomas Thawley.

In January, the National Commission for Informatics and Liberty (CNIL) of France fined Google $170 million for violating the right to free consent of internet users by making it nearly impossible for website visitors to reject tracking cookies by burying this option behind a number of clicks.