> The Court ruled that when consumers created a new Google Account during the initial set-up process of their Android device, Google misrepresented that the ‘Location History’ setting was the only Google Account setting that affected whether Google collected, kept or used personally identifiable data about their location. In fact, another Google Account setting titled ‘Web & App Activity’ also enabled Google to collect, store and use personally identifiable location data when it was turned on, and that setting was turned on by default.
>
The Court also found that when consumers later accessed the ‘Location History’ setting on their Android device during the same time period to turn that setting off, they were also misled because Google did not inform them that by leaving the ‘Web & App Activity’ setting switched on, Google would continue to collect, store and use their personally identifiable location data.
the Guardian coverage is less editorialized. Here's the judge's actual words:
“Google’s conduct would not have misled all reasonable users in the classes identified; but Google’s conduct misled or was likely to mislead some reasonable users within the particular classes identified.
“The number or proportion of reasonable users who were misled, or were likely to have been misled, does not matter for the purposes of establishing contravention.”
People say this frequently. Is this true? I always assume the fine establishes the illegal behavior and awareness of it for both parties and Google would be forced to correct the behavior regardless of the fine's size.
Were they to do it again or resume the behavior after the fine I assume the charges would escalate and eventually become criminal, hence companies curb their behaviors.
While this does create a 'get fined first' mentality, it does mean that good regulating could curb bad behavior. Am I wrong?
Penalties have not yet been decided. Lets hope the Judge is brave and sticks it to them as an example to all slimy companies who trade on PII and lie about it.
Being found guilty of misleading cinduct hurts trust in their brand.
Because it's easy to switch search engines, public relations are a key economic moat.
Although now, Android being so entrenched makes a deeper moat.
However, as google can't help itself from increasingly screwing users, it creates space for new entrants.
If you manage domains and force this stuff off your users will def complain.
My worry is we end up w a situation such as cookie notices - users have gotten so used to clicking through content screens they don’t pay attention anymore because a lot of it is meaningless
the cookie debacle really illustrated how toothless and futile current regulatory attemps are, the industry simply side-stepped the intent of the legislation and that was the end of it. It seems the cookie notices are annoying by design to guide public opinion against future regulatory attempts. "See what they made us do? Don't regulations stink?!"
Google, Facebook and other companies, in my opinion, are allowed to continue ignoring the law, because they provide valuable information to various services. They are essentially an enormous network of unwilling spies / informants. If the data they (in my opinion) provide wasn't useful, they would have been shut down long time ago.
Other thing is why even publish materials like this and what's the point of such commissions if they are toothless?
Isn't that a massive waste of tax payer money?
In many countries government creates various commissions to be able to give family members and associates well paid bogus jobs or pay for favours (if you vote for X, we will give a job to your wife's sister) and so on. Other reason is also to tick boxes - when asked by unscripted journalist about something, they can say look we care about this, we setup a commission...
It's definitely an artifact of my personality but I don't get the sense they are unwilling, though I imagine they would be coerced anyway and you could certainly start a discussion about how meaningful their consent would be in that context.
I'm a broken record but the profit motive is what will always always always enable this: people depend on this machine for their livelihoods and are only personally responsible for a negligible, ignore-able portion of its activities. Path of least resistance in a world of friction is these companies will continue to act with an agenda even its employees might disagree with (if that isn't fault tolerance though idk what is!)
Does anyone have a source for additional information on the mechanism by which Google is collecting location data when "Web & App Activity" is turned on? Is that permission giving access to the location API in the browser?
this article from 2018 has a bit more detail. What it boils down to seems to be that if you use search or maps to look for something local, say a restaurant, Google will remember that in your search history, which connects you and your location.
I worked for the ACCC from 2008 and 2011. I'd like to share some more context on the ACCC and Australian legal system that may be of interest to HN readers.
The ACCC is an independent authority empowered to enforce Australian Consumer Law (ACL) which contains consumer protection, completion product safety, anti-trust (competition) and other adjacent laws. It is most similar to the Federal Trade Commission in the US.
The ACCC leadership are commissioners who are appointed based on input of federal and state governments. The appointments tend to be "non-partisan" with the current chair leading the organization for 10 years (with 3 term renewals under multiple governments).
The ACCC has been taking action against Google since mid 2000s. The last case against Google that they won was in relation to consumers being misled about what were advertisements vs native results. [1]
The main provision of law protecting Australian consumers that is invoked in these cases is s18 of Australian consumer law that states: "A person [or entity] must not, in trade or commerce, engage in conduct that is misleading or deceptive or is likely to mislead or deceive."
Laws with this wording have existed in Australia since the the 1970s.
This law is enforced widely and there are also state agencies that enforce similar laws. All kinds of industries have received enforcement action ranging from retailers to supplement providers. As far as i know it's one of the but most broadly enforced consumer protection laws in any country.
The ACCC won a case against Apple under this same law in 2018 for misleading consumers about their warranty rights after third party repairs were done. Apple was fined $9 million dollars.
The action against Apple included 254 complaints from customers impacted. You can literally call or email the ACCC to log a complaint about any business and it will use this complaints to identify patterns of misconduct thst then enforce enforcement priorities.
The ACL currently limits penalties to $10 million per contravention for corporations. Only parliament can increase thst limit amending legislation. Individuals can also be fiend up to $5million.
Litigation is typically the last resort, and businesses have many oppurtunities to resolve or settle the matter. I am not in any way privy to this case, but typically a remediation action the ACCC seeks is notifying and posting notices that it engaged in misleading conduct, sometimes with a way for the consumer to seek a remedy. It's likely Google was not willing to do this without a fight.
Individuals and businesses can also privately take action if they were misled or deceived.
The Australian Court system that enforced this law is also relatively non-partisan. The australian government and judicial system was formed relatively recently - in the late 1800s and there was a strong intention to prevent political patronage in tbe public service and court system. [2]
Australian Consumer law also has other specific protections that i like such as requiring businesses to make the price the consumer has to pay most prominent (as opposed to making the price exclusive of taxes and fees most prominent).
The ACCC has just under 1000 employees and a small team would have worked on this case with support from outside lawyers. Congrats to them and hopefully this will encourage Google and other vendors to be more thoughtful about their data collection opt-ins.
ACCC is utterly toothless. They issue these pathetic fines but the behaviour continues. Yes you may have issued Apple a $9 million fine but it is commonly known that Apple stores in Australia openly flout Australian consumer laws. I would be embarrassed to admit I had ever worked for ACCC in any capacity.
[+] [-] izacus|5 years ago|reply
> The Court ruled that when consumers created a new Google Account during the initial set-up process of their Android device, Google misrepresented that the ‘Location History’ setting was the only Google Account setting that affected whether Google collected, kept or used personally identifiable data about their location. In fact, another Google Account setting titled ‘Web & App Activity’ also enabled Google to collect, store and use personally identifiable location data when it was turned on, and that setting was turned on by default.
> The Court also found that when consumers later accessed the ‘Location History’ setting on their Android device during the same time period to turn that setting off, they were also misled because Google did not inform them that by leaving the ‘Web & App Activity’ setting switched on, Google would continue to collect, store and use their personally identifiable location data.
[+] [-] bagacrap|5 years ago|reply
“Google’s conduct would not have misled all reasonable users in the classes identified; but Google’s conduct misled or was likely to mislead some reasonable users within the particular classes identified.
“The number or proportion of reasonable users who were misled, or were likely to have been misled, does not matter for the purposes of establishing contravention.”
[+] [-] notRobot|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeiz404|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] parhamn|5 years ago|reply
Were they to do it again or resume the behavior after the fine I assume the charges would escalate and eventually become criminal, hence companies curb their behaviors.
While this does create a 'get fined first' mentality, it does mean that good regulating could curb bad behavior. Am I wrong?
[+] [-] Khaine|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperpallium2|5 years ago|reply
Because it's easy to switch search engines, public relations are a key economic moat.
Although now, Android being so entrenched makes a deeper moat. However, as google can't help itself from increasingly screwing users, it creates space for new entrants.
[+] [-] 4cao|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] random5634|5 years ago|reply
My worry is we end up w a situation such as cookie notices - users have gotten so used to clicking through content screens they don’t pay attention anymore because a lot of it is meaningless
[+] [-] Red_Leaves_Flyy|5 years ago|reply
I suspect the goal is to manufacture consent through inundation of fraudulent and coercive consent agreements.
[+] [-] sbagel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] varispeed|5 years ago|reply
Other thing is why even publish materials like this and what's the point of such commissions if they are toothless?
Isn't that a massive waste of tax payer money?
In many countries government creates various commissions to be able to give family members and associates well paid bogus jobs or pay for favours (if you vote for X, we will give a job to your wife's sister) and so on. Other reason is also to tick boxes - when asked by unscripted journalist about something, they can say look we care about this, we setup a commission...
[+] [-] gatlin|5 years ago|reply
I'm a broken record but the profit motive is what will always always always enable this: people depend on this machine for their livelihoods and are only personally responsible for a negligible, ignore-able portion of its activities. Path of least resistance in a world of friction is these companies will continue to act with an agenda even its employees might disagree with (if that isn't fault tolerance though idk what is!)
[+] [-] shadowgovt|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bagacrap|5 years ago|reply
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-17/google-makes-changes-...
[+] [-] fblp|5 years ago|reply
The ACCC is an independent authority empowered to enforce Australian Consumer Law (ACL) which contains consumer protection, completion product safety, anti-trust (competition) and other adjacent laws. It is most similar to the Federal Trade Commission in the US.
The ACCC leadership are commissioners who are appointed based on input of federal and state governments. The appointments tend to be "non-partisan" with the current chair leading the organization for 10 years (with 3 term renewals under multiple governments).
The ACCC has been taking action against Google since mid 2000s. The last case against Google that they won was in relation to consumers being misled about what were advertisements vs native results. [1]
The main provision of law protecting Australian consumers that is invoked in these cases is s18 of Australian consumer law that states: "A person [or entity] must not, in trade or commerce, engage in conduct that is misleading or deceptive or is likely to mislead or deceive."
Laws with this wording have existed in Australia since the the 1970s.
This law is enforced widely and there are also state agencies that enforce similar laws. All kinds of industries have received enforcement action ranging from retailers to supplement providers. As far as i know it's one of the but most broadly enforced consumer protection laws in any country.
The ACCC won a case against Apple under this same law in 2018 for misleading consumers about their warranty rights after third party repairs were done. Apple was fined $9 million dollars.
The action against Apple included 254 complaints from customers impacted. You can literally call or email the ACCC to log a complaint about any business and it will use this complaints to identify patterns of misconduct thst then enforce enforcement priorities.
The ACL currently limits penalties to $10 million per contravention for corporations. Only parliament can increase thst limit amending legislation. Individuals can also be fiend up to $5million.
Litigation is typically the last resort, and businesses have many oppurtunities to resolve or settle the matter. I am not in any way privy to this case, but typically a remediation action the ACCC seeks is notifying and posting notices that it engaged in misleading conduct, sometimes with a way for the consumer to seek a remedy. It's likely Google was not willing to do this without a fight.
Individuals and businesses can also privately take action if they were misled or deceived.
The Australian Court system that enforced this law is also relatively non-partisan. The australian government and judicial system was formed relatively recently - in the late 1800s and there was a strong intention to prevent political patronage in tbe public service and court system. [2]
Australian Consumer law also has other specific protections that i like such as requiring businesses to make the price the consumer has to pay most prominent (as opposed to making the price exclusive of taxes and fees most prominent).
The ACCC has just under 1000 employees and a small team would have worked on this case with support from outside lawyers. Congrats to them and hopefully this will encourage Google and other vendors to be more thoughtful about their data collection opt-ins.
[1] https://www.australiancontractlaw.com/cases/google.html
[2] https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Depart...
[+] [-] mdoms|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] egberts1|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Khaine|5 years ago|reply
They did their job. To challenge dodgy practices, and get courts to uphold the law. I'm not sure what else you want them to do.
[+] [-] sldksk|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sunsipples|5 years ago|reply
pecuniary penalties differ from fines and depending on where they are taxable could be a deduction :/
[+] [-] williesleg|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] buggythebug|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] therealbilly|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] treelovinhippie|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] austhrow743|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mdoms|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wisdomdata|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fnord77|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gigatexal|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Majestic121|5 years ago|reply
Yes, I'm surprised that the "Web & App" permission also gives access to my location when there's another permission called "Location history".
Are you not ?
[+] [-] FreezingKeeper|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]