The ACCC maintains Google misled consumers to obtain their consent for collecting a broader scope of personal data.
Google started linking data from DoubleClick: In 2016, Google started combining personal information in consumers’ Google accounts with information about those individuals’ activities on non-Google sites that used Google technology (formerly DoubleClick technology), to display ads. As a consequence, data about users’ non-Google online activity became linked to their names and other identifying information held by Google. Previously, this information had been kept separately from users’ Google accounts, meaning the data was not linked to an individual user. Google then used this newly combined information to improve the commercial performance of its advertising businesses.
The ACCC believes consent was never explicit: On 27 July 2020, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) launched Federal Court proceedings against Google, alleging it misled Australian consumers in order to obtain their consent, so that it could expand the scope of personal information it could collect and combine. The ACCC also alleges that Google misled consumers about a related change to its privacy policy. The Authority believes that Google did not obtain consumers’ consent to collect potentially very sensitive and private information about their activities on third party websites. The change was described as ‘new features for your Google Account’, claiming to give users more control over the data collected while allowing Google to show users more relevant ads. Consumers had to click on the “I agree” notification to turn these features on.
Google reneged on its previous commitments: Google’s privacy policy no longer carries the previous commitment not to combine DoubleClick cookie information with personally identifiable information unless consumers opted in, and pledges not to reduce user rights without their explicit consent. The ACCC alleges that Google did not obtain consumers’ explicit consent for this change to the privacy policy, and therefore such a statement was misleading. The ACCC took similar action against Google in October 2019, when it accused the company of misleading representation about the location data it collects and uses.
