Google Fined $43M In Australia For Misleading Users Over Data Tracking

Australia's competition watchdog said the country's federal court ordered Alphabet Inc's GOOGL GOOG Google on Friday to pay AU$60 million ($42.7 million) in penalties for misleading users. 

The court found that the company misled users about collecting their location data through their Android mobile devices between January 2017 and December 2018, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) said in a statement.

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According to the court ruling, Google misled users into believing the "location history" setting on their android phones was the only way location data could be collected by it, while other features to monitor web and application activity also allowed local data collection and storage. 

The Australian watchdog started the proceedings against the company and its local unit in October 2019. 

It estimates that around 1.3 million Australian Google account users may have been affected by this. 

The search engine giant has been embroiled in legal controversies in Australia for a while. In June, an Australian court ordered it to pay AU$715,000 ($515,000) to a former lawmaker in defamation damages over two videos posted on its social media platform YouTube.

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