Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Google: Deterring Misleading Conduct in Digital Privacy Policies

Abstract

Concerns over digital platforms’ collection and use of consumer data, and the impact of their data practices on personal privacy, consumer autonomy and market competition, have been increasing across the globe in recent years. The central business model of digital platform giants such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook, as well as relative newcomers Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent, is premised on bringing together consumers wanting to buy products and businesses wanting to advertise or sell their products to particular groups of consumers. This strategy relies on ‘consumer profiling’, a process through which data collected from consumers’ online interactions is fed into algorithms to make predictions about those consumers’ future behaviour, as well as those who resemble them. In data collection for profiling purposes, location data is particularly valuable. Location data links consumer profiles to a physical location, which provides insights about their actual behaviour that can improve the granularity of micro-targeting and the accuracy of predictions from data analytics.