SOCIAL MEDIA / TECHNOLOGY / LAW
The Cost Of Tracking 1,300,000 People Online is $8
Or… Why the Australian government fine for Google’s privacy practices is nothing more than a slap of the wrist for one of the world’s largest tracking companies
What would happen if you, personally, tracked 1,300,000 people in real life without their authorisation?
According to the Australian government — not much.
Making Alphabet Soup With Hot Water
The ACCC (Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, or the A triple C as it is known) said that Alphabet Inc’s Google unit was ordered by the country’s Federal Court to pay A$60 million ($42.7 million) in penalties for misleading users on collection of their personal location data.
The facts of the case were as follows:
- Google breached consumer laws by misleading some local users into thinking the company was not collecting personal data about their location when using Android mobile handsets.
- When the user had turned “off” the setting to collect their location history but they still had web and app activity set to “on” and they then used one of its apps — Google would track their usage.
So where does the $8 come in?
Google earned 256.74 Billion US dollars in revenue for 2021, and the fine was a paltry $43 Million US dollars.
Let us put this into context:
- Google earned the $43 million dollar fine in approximately 1.36 seconds
Let’s say that you, personally, earn $50,000 dollars a year — if you were to do this, then the fine would cost you $8 — which is probably less than you spend on coffees in a week.
Oh, and it would be tax deductible as it is considered a cost of business.
The judge, in this case, said that
“he was satisfied the fine was in an appropriate range and thanked the parties before adjourning the case.”
With these sorts of penalties, it is no wonder that tech giants like Google can get away with whatever they want.
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