Reliance on expert evidence in Google Federal Court decision

In April 2021, the Federal Court handed down a decision in favour of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) against Google LLC. The ACCC had brought misleading and deceptive conduct claims against Google for its failure to disclose clearly to Android users which Google Account settings allowed it to collect and use customers' personal location data.>

Two main takeaways about expert evidence emerge from Justice Thawley's judgement, which explicitly accepted expert opinions as instrumental in deciding the matter:

1. There is a strong possibility that Australian courts will place even greater reliance on expert evidence for interpreting disclosures about the collection and use of personal data. Behavioural Economics has been accepted by the Federal Court in this particular case as the appropriate framework with which to analyse the extent of information disclosure and whether the disclosure, or lack thereof, was misleading. It reinforces the