Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) — Google has agreed to pay a $60 million (about 404 million yuan) fine in a legal battle with Australia’s competition watchdog for misleading users about the tech giant’s collection of personal location data, according to the Australian Associated Press.
Last April, an Australian federal court found that Google violated consumer laws by misleading some users into believing that the company was not collecting personal data about their location through mobile devices with the Android operating system. Google continued to collect and access location data when users’ location records were set to “off” but their activity on the Web and apps was “enabled” and they were using their apps.
Google was also found to have violated two other consumer laws involving conduct that could mislead the public and misleading statements about the performance characteristics of the service. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said at the time that the ruling sent a clear message to digital platforms to be forthcoming with consumers about their data use.
At a brief hearing in the Federal Court of Australia on Friday, the parties were told that they had reached a “fair and reasonable” agreement on a $60 million fine.
