Australia's consumer watchdog on Tuesday announced legal action against Google for allegedly misleading customers about the way it collects and uses personal location data. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) claims Google collected, kept and used "highly sensitive and valuable personal information" of Android phone and tablet users without giving them an informed choice.
The tech giant is accused of making misleading on-screen representations about the location data it was collecting and when certain Google Account settings were enabled or disabled. ACCC chair Adam Sims said the watchdog was seeking "significant penalties" and for Google to acknowledge its past behaviour was "inappropriate". "We're also alleging that some of the behaviour is continuing," he told reporters in Sydney. "We want declarations that the current behaviour should not continue."
The ACCC says that between 2017 and 2018 Google failed to disclose that both "location history" and "web & app activity" settings needed to be switched off to prevent location data collection.
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