Australian court: Google was not misleading about its use of user data

The Australian Federal Court has dismissed a lawsuit against Google. The case was brought by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), which alleged that Google was not clear about its use of user data for targeted advertising.

The Australian consumer watchdog reports that the federal judge has dismissed the lawsuit against Google. The ACCC filed the lawsuit in 2020, alleging that Google had not clearly informed users about the use of user data for advertising purposes.

Starting in 2016, the company started combining personal information in Google accounts with activity from those accounts on sites that use Google’s technology to serve ads. This allows advertisements to be shown that match the interests of the user. However, the user must give explicit permission for this. According to the ACCC, consumers did not know enough about what they were consenting to. The consumer watchdog also claims that the privacy policy changes restrict the rights of account holders without their express consent.

The federal court did not agree. He ruled on Friday that the notice and changes to the privacy policy were not misleading. Google had asked users for their explicit consent to implement the changes and informed them sufficiently about the changes. The judge points out that the notification requesting permission contained links. These led to pages with information about the privacy and advertising policies.

According to the judge, the ACCC has also not been able to prove that the privacy policy restricts the rights of users. Therefore, the lawsuit is dismissed and the consumer watchdog must pay Google’s costs incurred in the case, writes The Canberra Times. Google says it is satisfied with the judge’s ruling. The ACCC says it will “carefully study the judge’s decision.”