An Australian court has ordered "Meta Platforms," the owner of Facebook, to pay a total fine of 20 million Australian dollars (14 million dollars) for collecting user data through a smartphone application, which was promoted as a means of protecting privacy without disclosing its actions.
The Australian Federal Court also ordered "Meta" to pay 400,000 Australian dollars in legal costs to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which filed the civil lawsuit. "Meta" is still facing a civil suit initiated by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner regarding its dealings with "Cambridge Analytica" in Australia.
Wednesday’s ruling pertains to the "Onavo" application, a virtual private network (VPN) owned by the company, which the company claimed was a way to keep personal information confidential. Virtual private networks hide the identity of internet users by providing their devices with a different address online.
However, Facebook used the app to collect users' locations, the timing and frequency of their use of other smartphone apps, and the websites they visited for advertising purposes, as stated by Judge Wendy Abraham in a written ruling.
"Meta," which generated global revenue of 116 billion dollars last year, stated in a release that the judge acknowledged they never sought to mislead customers. They added, "Over the past several years, we have produced tools to give people more transparency and control over how their data is used."
