“We’re going to look at it and see whether there’s
any value in what we might do,” Sims added.
Separately, Sims is drafting legislation to address
the imbalance in bargaining power between
Google and the Australian media businesses
that want the tech giant to pay for journalism.
The bills, that will be ready to be introduced to
Parliament by December, would empower an
arbitrator to make binding decisions on how
much Google and Facebook must pay media
companies for news content.
Sims said his commission “had a lot of talk” with
the U.S. Justice Department before he released a
report in July last year that recommended more
government regulation on the market power of
Google and Facebook that would ensure fair deals
for other media businesses and more control for
individuals on how their data was used.
Sim’s commission launched Australian court
action against Google in July alleging the
California-based company misled account
holders about its use of their personal data.
The commission alleges the Google misled
millions of Australians to obtain their consent
and expand the scope of personal information
that Google collects about users’ internet
activity to target advertising. Google denies
the allegations.
In October last year, the commission sued
Google in an Australian court alleging the
company broke consumer law by misleading
Android users about how their location data
was collected and used. That case will be heard
by the Federal Court next month. Google also
denies that allegation.