Taking on Facebook and Google: Corporate regulator lays out tough stance

September 29 2022

Gina Cass-Gottlieb, ACCC Chair

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is applying “intense focus” to the digital economy amid the ever-increasing expansion of platforms like Google and Meta and growing misleading and manipulative practices which harm consumers.

This was ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb’s central point in her hard-hitting keynote speech at the Monash Business School/Monash Law event ‘Competition law in a changing economy and rise of the digital era: Roundtable with four chairs of the ACCC, past and present’.

The sold-out 28 September event was moderated by Roger Featherston (ACCC Commissioner from 2014-2019), with opening remarks by Monash Business School’s Senior Deputy Dean, Faculty Operations, Prof Michelle Welsh, and Dean, Monash Law, Prof Bryan Horrigan.

Taking the floor ahead of her predecessors, Allan Fels (ACCC Chair from 1995 - 2003), Graeme Samuel (2003 - 2011) and Rod Sims (2011 - 2022), Ms Cass-Gottlieb, who became chair in March, outlined current ACCC action against digital giants, against a background of growing global enforcement.

ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb (centre) with (back) Prof Michelle Welsh, Prof Bryan Horrigan, Prof Chongwoo Choe; (front) moderator Roger Featherston, and former ACCC chairs Allan Fels, Graeme Samuel and Rod Sims.

“We have continuing cases in court against the digital platforms, including two against Facebook and one awaiting judgement against Google, (and) two of these also relate to misleading consumers about their data”, Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.

Facebook (now Meta) misled Australian consumers by representing that the free Onavo Protect app would keep users’ data private, protected and secret, when in fact it aggregated and used that data for commercial purposes, one case alleges.

Another case against Meta alleges it engaged in false, misleading or deceptive conduct by publishing crypto scam advertisements featuring prominent Australian public figures.

And ACCC states Google misled users when it combined its own user data with information gathered by advertising platform DoubleClick, which Google acquired in 2008, without gaining explicit informed consent.

“These are good examples of how current enforcement powers, including our Australian consumer law protections, are able to be used to take action”, Ms Cass-Gottlieb said.

With a surge in consumers paying for goods and services by card, “a focus, particularly on digital payment systems, is also a priority for the ACCC this year”, she said.

Ms Cass-Gottlieb made her remarks as the ACCC prepares to hand the Federal Government its 30 September report on regulatory reform for digital platforms, “which will give our views on whether supplementary regulatory reforms are required to better address competition and consumer harms in digital markets”.

While unable to foreshadow the report’s recommendations, Ms Cass-Gottlieb said in her address the agency was “concerned about the ability of enforcement action to address systemic competition and consumer breaches in the consumer ecosystem and to operate to incent meaningful compliance today”.

Merger assessments is another area of focus, she said, in particular “the difficult issue of large incumbent digital platforms buying out nascent competitive threats”.

“There is a collective understanding globally now among many competition authorities that digital acquisitions have cemented incumbent positions, and regulators need to do more so we don’t foreclose the potential emergence of rivals in existing and emerging digital markets”, she said.

“(This) is a challenge that needs to be confronted”.

View a recording of the full event on LinkedIn Live.