In Australia, the Federal Court reportedly fined Meta $20 million for misleading advertisements used by Meta subsidiaries Onavo Inc and Facebook Israel for its security practice.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has filed a lawsuit in Federal Court against Meta companies Facebook Israel and Onavo Inc, alleging that they misled customers by promoting the VPN application Onavo Protect, which is advertised as protecting users’ data.
Federal Court ruled that Meta subsidiaries Facebook Israel and Onavo Inc misled users by advertising the application and collected users’ data for commercial purposes without adequate warning about the Onavo Protect application.
Judge Wendy Abraham has ordered the companies, both owned by Meta, to pay the Australian government a fine of ten million dollars. She also made the decision that Meta would contribute $400,000 to their company to the legal costs of the ACCC.
Meta spokesperson, on the other hand, said in a statement that the ACCC accepted that the application’s terms of service and security policy text were correct, but stated that this was not sufficiently and clearly included in the promotions.
The VPN app, Onavo Protect, was recorded over 271,000 downloads in Australia between February 2016 and October 2017.