Meta subsidiary fined 20 million Australian dollars by Australian court for illegal use of user data

Odaily Planet Daily News Australia's Federal Court ordered Meta's two subsidiaries, Facebook Israel and Onavo, to pay A$10 million each for allegedly misleading consumers about their data usage. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said on Wednesday the court declared the two companies misleading the public in their promotion of the Onavo Protect app by failing to properly disclose that users' data would be used to deliver Onavo Protect (VPN) Other purposes, including Meta's commercial purposes. The ACCC added that Onavo and Facebook Israel shared personal activity data collected by the app with parent company Meta in an anonymized and aggregated form for commercial gain. The ACCC noted that the information shared with Meta included users' internet and app activity data, such as a record of each app they accessed and how long they used those apps. The ACCC said that in documents submitted to the court, both Facebook Israel and Onavo agreed that the app store listings stated that Onavo Protect users' data would only be used to provide the Onavo Protect VPN. But the notes did not disclose that data collected by Onavo Protect about the online activities of its Australian users was also used for other purposes, including as a "business intelligence tool". ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said: "In the case of the Onavo Protect app, we are concerned that consumers seeking to protect their privacy through a virtual private network are not clearly informed that when downloading and using the app, they are actually Facilitating Meta's business interests." According to reports, Judge Wendy Abraham said in a written judgment that Facebook used Onavo for advertising purposes to collect the location, time and frequency of users using other smartphone applications and the websites users visited. The Australian court also ordered the company to pay the ACCC A$400,000 in legal costs. (Reuters)