Tech giants face Aust crackdown
Report finds Google, Facebook harming consumers
TECH giants Google and Facebook were “harming” Australian consumers by scraping personal information without their knowledge and forcing them to accept complex “takeit-or-leave-it terms,” according to a world-first inquiry into the impact of digital platforms.
The damning preliminary report by Australia’s competition watchdog found the multinationals — worth more than $US1 trillion combined — were creating highly detailed personal profiles without users’ knowledge to dominate the Australian advertising market.
The ACCC also determined the social giants had become significant media providers even though they faced “no regulation online,” stripped revenue from news providers, reduced scrutiny of public institutions, and should be subject to new laws to limit their unchallenged influence in Australia.
The wide-ranging, 378-page report made 11 recommendations to limit the negative impacts of Google and Facebook’s dominance in Australia, including an overhaul of privacy laws and the introduction of fines exceeding $10 million, a regulator to investigate how tech giants handled news and advertising in Australia, and a way to quickly remove stolen content.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission also pledged to investigate whether consumers should be able to opt-out of ads or delete their personal data, whether an ombudsman was needed to detail with complaints about scams, and new ways to fund quality journalism, including making approved digital news subscriptions tax deductible.
The regulator also revealed it had already launched five investigations into “certain digital platforms” to determine whether they had broken existing consumer and competition laws.
The ACCC report met with wide support yesterday, with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner saying it welcomed “measures to strengthen primary protections for individuals,” and Commercial Radio Australia chief executive Joan Warner commenting that action was “needed to address the gaping inequalities” between radio broadcasters and digital platforms.
A Facebook spokesman said the social network was “currently reviewing their analysis,” and a Google Australia spokesman said the tech giant would “continue to engage with the ACCC between now and the final report next year”.
ACCC chairman Rod Sims said digital platforms including Facebook and Google now had so much influence in Australia there was little choice but to regulate them.
“The alternative is we say, ‘there’s very large platforms, they have market power, they have a lot of data, they have a lot of influence, and we don’t care, we’ll leave it to them to make judgments’,” he said.
Mr Sims said research conducted as part of the report showed Australians were concerned but confused about how much of their personal information was harvested by the tech giants, and laws were needed to provide more clarity and controls for deleting information or opting out of personalised ads.
“The data that’s collected from consumers using these platforms extends significantly beyond the data that users actively provide when using the digital platform services,” Mr Sims said.
“There seems to be an understatement to consumers of the extent of data collection if you read the policies, and an overstatement to consumers of the level of control consumers have over their personal data use.”
Further submissions to the ACCC’s digital platforms inquiry will be accepted until February 15, and the final report is due on June 3 next year.