Australia's official consumer watchdog has reportedly launched certain legal action against the mighty Facebook over on December 16. This included allegations that the social media giant reportedly "misled" around thousands of Australians. This was reportedly done by collecting certain user data coming from a particularly free VPN service that was advertised as "private."
Facebook sued by Australian watchdog
According to an article by The Star, the popular platform could potentially face a certain find should they be found guilty of actually deceiving its users.This was done as Australia now takes a more increasingly assertive stance towards the known powerful US tech titans.
The official Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, otherwise known as the ACCC, has recently accused Facebook as well as two of its different subsidiaries namely Facebook Israel as well as Onavo Inc. for misleading people. The misleading reportedly happened when people downloaded its own virtual private network or VPN app known as Onavo Project, by actually collecting and also using their own very detailed as well as valuable personal activity data.
ACCC sues Facebook and two partners
Records of which particular apps that have been accessed as well as the amount of time that had been spent using them were a few among the alleged data used in order to support Facebook's own market research. The official ACCC alleges that Facebook as well as the two partners had falsely represented the now-defunct VPN service as a means to keep user data protected, private, and secret between February of 2016 up to October of 2017.
According to the ACCC Chair known as Rod Sims, consumers most often use the VPN service because they do care about their own online privacy. This was what the Facebook product had claimed to offer. In fact, it was said that the Onavo Protect channeled certain significant volumes of their own personal activity data all the way back to Facebook.
Alleged VPN gives Facebook user data
The statement then continues saying that they believe that the particular conduct deprived the Australian consumers of certain opportunity in order to make an informed voice about the given collection and the use of their own personal activity data by both Facebook and Onavo. Facebook had not responded to a request for comment.
The ACCC has also previously helped draft a particular law that threatens both Facebook and Google with fines of millions of dollars unless they had agreed to pay certain media outlets when their own platforms host certain news content. Back in March, the said Australian Information Commissioner had also begun some legal action directly against Facebook for allegedly exposing over 300,000 Australians to a certain data breach by the political consulting firm known as Cambridge Analytica. According to an article by France24, Facebook has already paid certain penalties in both the United States and Britain over a previous massive 2018 data hijacking scandal that involved a certain now-defunct British company - AFP
Related Article: FTC Orders Explanation from Big Tech Companies on What They Do with User Data Shortly After Facebook's Antitrust Violations
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Written by Urian Buenconsejo