Australian court orders Google to pay $43 million for misleading users

The watchdog estimates that Australia's 1.3 million Google account users may have been affected

Australia's competition watchdog confirmed that Alphabet Inc’s Google unit was ordered by its Federal Court to pay A$60 million in penalties for misleading users on collecting their personal location data. Google misled some of its customers about personal location data collected through their Android mobile devices between January 2017 and December 2018. The company misled its users into believing the "location history" setting on their android phones was the only way location data could be collected by it. The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission said that Google's feature to monitor web and application activity also allowed local data collection and storage.

The watchdog estimates that Australia's 1.3 million Google account users may have been affected. The proceedings in the company started in October 2019. Google was not available for comment. The search engine giant has been caught in legal action in Australia over the past year as the government contemplated and passed a law to make Google and Meta Platforms' Facebook pay media companies for content on their platforms.