Federal Court finds Google misled customers

In a world-first ruling, Google has lost a case in the Australian federal court, after being found to have misled customers.

The nation’s watchdog says Google misled customers about how their location data was being used. Picture: by Alain Jocard/AFP

Google has lost a case in the Australian federal court, after being found to have misled customers about how their location data was being used.

The court found Google still tracked locations, even if the user had turned off the settings or had asked for service to be stopped.

Google misled consumers by thinking if they had turned off location history it would mean the company would stop storing or keeping data on a person’s “identifiable” location data.

ACCC chairman Rod Sims. Picture: Jonathan Ng

However, to stop Google collecting location data, a consumer had to turn off another setting called web apps.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Rod Sims welcomed the ruling after taking the legal action against Google.

“This is the first ruling of its type in the world in relation to these location data issues. It is also the first result we have had of a series of cases in relation to digital platforms, and so we are very happy to have come out with a very positive court result,” Mr Sims in a press conference on Friday.

“Data issues are only going to be more important. It is crucial … we get some court rulings in relation to what platforms can cannot do.”

Originally published as Federal Court finds Google misled customers