The lawsuit that Australia’s regulator filed against Alphabet Inc.’s Google, alleging that customers were misled about the increased use of their personal information for targeted advertising, was dismissed by a court on Friday.
The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission filed the lawsuit in July 2020, alleging that Google changed its policy in 2016 to combine user activity on non-Google websites that use its advertising technology with personal information from their accounts. The company was accused of failing to obtain users’ explicit consent before making this change.
Although Google “only implemented the steps with their (users’) informed consent,” the regulator claimed, the Federal Court found that the notification that allowed users to accept policy changes was not deceptive.
In addition, the court pointed out that Google did not curtail account holders’ rights under the privacy policy.
A Reuters request for comment was not immediately answered by Google Australia.
