The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has accused Google of failing to properly inform its users and gain their consent about the use of their personal data for targeted advertising. The tech giant denied the allegations, and now, it intends to fight the accusers in court.
According to Daily Mail, ACCC chairman Rod Sims said Monday, July 27, that the changes in Google's algorithms in 2016 had affected millions of Australians from June 2016 until December 2018.
The ACCC claims Google did not obtain explicit consent from consumers about how it plans to use huge amounts of personal information, including users' online activities on other websites.
Sims said that Google remained silent about the secondary setting while it failed to advise users of how it intends to use these data. These allegations are based on the ACCC's report published in June 2019.
The regulators recommended passing legislation for consumer protection reforms that would tackle the dominance of digital platforms such as Google and Facebook.
However, a Google spokesperson denied the allegations and said that the company is ready to defend its position in court.
'The changes we made were optional, and we asked users to consent via prominent and easy-to-understand notifications,' a spokesperson told AAP. He also added that the users' experience will remain unchanged even if a user did not consent.
The spokesperson was referring to the pop-up notifications, which the users need to click to agree to the changes and allowed Google to collect and store more personally identifiable information, which now includes their online activities while accessing third-party websites and apps.
Federal Labor's communications spokeswoman Michelle Rowland said consumers deserve to get protection against invasive advertising, so they "must understand and consent to how their data gets used."
Anyone who has experienced that spooky feeling of being served targeted ads after browsing the internet should welcome moves by the ACCC," Rowland said, adding that targeted advertising can sometimes be invasive.
