Google was fined about 400 million yuan in Australia for misleading users in collecting personal location data.

CTOnews.com, Aug. 12 (Xinhua)-- Google has agreed to pay a fine of $60 million (404 million yuan) in a legal battle with Australia's competition watchdog because the tech giant misled users in collecting personal location data, the Associated Press reported.

In April last year, a federal court in Australia found that Google had violated consumer law, misleading some users into believing that the company did not collect personal data about their location through mobile devices on the Android operating system. Google continues to collect and access location data when users' location records are set to "off", but their activities on the network and applications are "enabled" and are using their applications.

CTOnews.com learned that Google was also found to have violated two other consumer laws, involving behavior that could mislead the public and misleading statements about the performance characteristics of the service. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said at the time that the ruling sent a clear message to digital platforms asking them to be honest with consumers about the use of their data.

It was learned at a brief hearing in the Australian Federal Court on Friday that the two sides had reached a "fair and reasonable" agreement on the $60 million fine.