Facebook’s Meta fined in Australia for misleading consumers

SYDNEY: Facebook’s parent company Meta was fined 20mil Australian dollars (RM61.6mil) for misleading consumers, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) said on Wednesday.

A federal court ordered Meta subsidiaries Facebook Israel and Onavo Inc to each pay US$10mil (RM45.5mil) to Australia “for engaging in conduct liable to mislead in breach of the Australian Consumer Law,” said the consumer watchdog, which brought the action.

Onavo Protect was a free mobile app promoted in Google and Apple app store listings as a product that would keep users’ data safe by providing a virtual private network (VPN) service.

“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,” the ACCC said in a press release.

According to the ACCC, the app was installed more than 270,000 times by Australian users between February 2016 and October 2017.

A federal judge on Wednesday found the two subsidiaries engaged in behaviour liable to mislead the public by failing to adequately disclose what users’ data would be used for, including for Meta’s commercial purposes.

Following the judgement, a Meta spokesperson told Australian media that the company maintained that Onavo Protect had properly functioned as a security tool.

“There was no allegation by the ACCC that the app did not function properly as an online security tool,” Meta said in a statement published by Australian public broadcaster ABC.

“Protecting the privacy and security of people’s data is fundamental to how Meta’s business works. Over the last several years, we have built tools to give people more transparency and control over how their data is used, and we design every new product and feature with privacy in mind.” – dpa