New Delhi: An Australian court docket on Wednesday ordered Meta (previously Facebook) platforms to pay fines of practically $14 million (AUS$20 million) for deceptive customers about the usage of their knowledge. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) sued Meta over its use of Onavo again in December 2020.
The federal court docket has ordered the 2 subsidiaries of Meta, Facebook Israel and Onavo Inc, to every pay AUS$10 million for partaking in conduct liable to mislead in breach of the Australian Consumer Law.
The subsidiaries, which have been the Onavo Protect VPN app’s builders and suppliers, have been discovered to be answerable for deceptive app descriptions displayed in Google and Apple App Store listings.
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“In Google and Apple App Store listings, Onavo Protect was promoted as a product that would keep users’ data protected and safe, for example with language such as ‘Use a free, fast and secure VPN to protect personal information’ and ‘Helps Keep You and Your Data Safe’,” the fee stated.
“In fact, Onavo and Facebook Israel shared the personal activity data from users collected by the app in anonymised and aggregated form with parent company Meta (then known as Facebook Inc) for commercial benefit,” it added.
The watchdog additionally found that between February 2016 and October 2017, Australian customers put in the “Onavo Protect” VPN app over 270,000 occasions. Facebook discontinued the service in May 2019.
“We took this case knowing that many consumers are concerned about how their data is captured, stored and used by digital platforms. We believe Australian consumers should be able to make an informed choice about what happens to their data based on clear information that is not misleading,” ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb, stated in an announcement.
As said in joint submissions to the Court, Onavo and Facebook Israel agreed that the App Store listings conveyed that the Onavo Protect VPN would solely use customers’ knowledge.
In the listings, Onavo Protect didn’t point out that it collected knowledge about its Australian customers’ on-line actions for different functions, together with as a ‘enterprise intelligence device’.
“In the case of the Onavo Protect app, we were concerned that consumers seeking to protect their privacy through a virtual private network were not clearly told that in downloading and using this app they were actually facilitating the use of their data for Meta’s commercial benefit,” Cass-Gottlieb stated.
Source web site: zeenews.india.com
