Commerce Commission's reaction to Google's A$60m fine in Australia

Google is not appealing its A$60 million fine in Australia. Photo / AP

Australia and New Zealand's respective market watchdogs remain a literal and metaphorical ocean apart in their approach to Big Tech.

The Australian Federal Court has ordered Google to pay a A$60 million ($65m) fine for making misleading representations to consumers about the collection and use of their personal location data.

Google misled consumers into thinking they had disabled location tracking on Android smartphones by making opting-out a two-step process, with a second step that was not obvious, Justice Thawley said in his judgment.

That meant that, until a change in late 2018, the users of some Android phones had their location tracked even if they had ticked "No" or "Do not collect" in settings.

Google is not appealing. The tech giant has agreed to pay the penalty.

The announcement of the A$60m penalty, on Friday, came after legal action brought by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, under its Inquiry into Digital Platforms initiative, that resulted in a trial and a guilty verdict in April last year.

The inquiry has also seen the ACCC launch legal action against Facebook and Instagram owner Meta, related to fake celebrity accounts and ads posted by scammers. The Aussie regulator alleges Meta has made "substantial revenue" from ads placed by scammers, promised lots of safeguards but implemented few of them.

Facebook says between January and March this year it took steps that resulted in 99.7 per cent of fake ads and the same percentage of fake accounts being removed before being reported, and detailed two cases it had taken against fake ad makers: one in December and another in April 2020.

A hearing date has yet to be set.

While it's all action across the Tasman, here our equivalent to the ACCC - the Commerce Commission - is keeping a watching brief.

Shortly after Google's A$60m Federal Court penalty was announced on Friday, Commerce Commission general manager, fair trading Vanessa Horne said, "The Commerce Commission is not currently investigating Google in New Zealand under the Fair Trading Act. However, the ACCC's case is one that we have followed with interest along with others that came out of its large Inquiry into Digital Platforms."

And late last month, after the Herald detailed how a financial journalist and other high-profile Kiwis had been hit by Facebook and Instagram impersonators, who hit their followers with scams, a Commerce Commission spokesperson said:

"We have received two complaints regarding this [crypto ad scams featuring fake endorsements], one related to YouTube, the other to Facebook. From the information received, there was no action taken by the Commission in either instance as there were no clear breaches."