The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
(ACCC) launched proceedings in the Federal Court
of Australia against Google for misleading Australian consumers
about its privacy collection practices.
The ACCC alleges Google misled consumers when it failed to
properly inform consumers, and failed to gain explicit informed
consent, about its decision to combine personal information in
consumers' Google accounts with information about those
individuals' activities on non-Google sites to display targeted
advertisements.
This meant this data about users' non-Google online activity
became linked to their names and other identifying information held
by Google, when this had not previously occurred. Armed with
the newly linked data, Google was able to provide more effective
targeted ads.
