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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Google taken to court by ACCC for 'misleading consumers on targeted ads':

The competition watchdog has launched Federal Court proceedings against Google alleging the tech giant misled Australian consumers about how their personal data was collected and used to improve its advertising service.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announced on Monday it had commenced proceedings claiming Google failed to properly inform consumers and did not get their explicit informed consent to expand the scope of personal information that it could collect and combine a user's activity on non-Google sites with the information on their Google accounts.

Google disputes the allegations and said it intends to defend its position.

[...] ACCC chair Rod Sims said the watchdog was taking legal action because it considered Google misled Australian consumers about what it planned to do with large amounts of their personal information, including internet activity on websites not connected to Google.

[...] A spokesperson for Google said the tech giant updated its ad systems and associated user controls in June 2016 to match the way people use Google products across many different devices.

Original Submission