JUDGEMENTS
Federal Court finds Google misled Android purchasers
On 16 April 2021, the Federal Court ruled that Google LLC and
Google Australia Pty Ltd had contravened the Australian
Consumer Law by misleading consumers about personal location
data collected through Android mobile devices between January 2017
and December 2018: Australian Competition and Consumer
Commission v Google LLC (No 2) [2021] FCA 367. The ACCC's
principal contention was 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, when in fact another Google Account setting titled
"Web & App Activity" also enabled Google to collect,
store and use such data when it was turned on, and that setting was
turned on by default. Thawley J ruled that ACCC had
