ACCC hauls Facebook to court for ‘deceptive’ conduct

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) faces legal action in the Australian Federal Court, accused of “false, misleading or deceptive conduct”.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) announced on Wednesday it has started proceedings against the US company and two subsidiaries.

The allegations involve the promotion of Facebook’s ‘Onavo Protect’ smartphone app.

The consumer watchdog accuses the social media giant of spruiking the app as a way to protect private data – when in reality it was harvesting data for commercial purposes.

“Facebook was collecting and using the very detailed and valuable personal activity data of thousands of Australian consumers for its own commercial purposes, which we believe is…