The federal court sided with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which sued Google in October 2019, alleging that the tech giant misled consumers about personal location data collected through Android devices between January 2017 and December 2018. According to the complaint, Google allowed users to turn off location …
Read More »Australian PM Morrison calls on EU to release 3.1mn vaccine doses after Brussels denies blocking shipments
“3.1 million of the contracted vaccines that we had been relying upon in early January when we’d set out a series of targets did not turn up in Australia,” Morrison told reporters early on Wednesday, saying the missing doses, developed by AstraZeneca, “obviously had a very significant impact on the …
Read More »Who else could it be? Russian hackers suspected of taking Australian morning news broadcast off air
Channel 9 CEO Mike Sneesby confirmed that a cyber-attack rendered the broadcaster unable to air its morning news show, ‘Weekend Today’, which runs between 7am and 1pm local time from its Sydney office. The channel’s 5pm news program also failed to air in Melbourne. The company said in a statement …
Read More »Australian police chief sparks backlash by proposing app to record sexual consent, later admitting it may be year’s ‘worst idea’
Mick Fuller, a police official in Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales (NSW), first defended his proposal for a ‘consent app’ after a wave of criticism. He was quoted by APP as saying that the app would prevent sexual assault and also keep victims out of the justice system, …
Read More »Australian spy chief dumps ‘right-wing’ & ‘Islamic’ extremism terms – that’s woke nonsense and denial of reality
The Australian intelligence service risks making an international laughing stock of its efforts to combat terrorism after its boss announced it will no longer use labels ‘right wing’ and ‘Islamic’ when speaking of extremism. “Words matter,” Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) chief Mike Burgess told the nation on Wednesday, …
Read More »Low bar for ‘triumph of democracy’? Australian PM under fire after bragging women protesters weren’t shot
The new jolt rocked Australia’s scandal-ridden political landscape on Monday, after PM Scott Morrison spoke on the massive women’s rights protests. Over the weekend, thousands of women across the country joined the ‘March 4 Justice’ protests against sexual assault, triggered by multiple sex scandals in the country’s government. Morrison praised …
Read More »Australian reporters ‘angered’ after advice to stop using term ‘pedophile’ to refer to accused serial child molestor
In an email to reporters, an unnamed senior producer at ABC said that the Sexual Assault Support Service (SASS) had “mentioned their concerns” about describing former nurse James Geoffrey Griffin – who committed suicide in 2019 after the allegations against him were made public – as a pedophile. Griffin was …
Read More »Australian AG outs himself as target of rape allegations in 1988 case that police consider closed after investigation
Attorney-General Christian Porter came forward on Wednesday to reveal that he was the minister accused by an unidentified Adelaide woman of raping her when she was 16. He said he waited for the New South Wales (NSW) police to complete their investigation before going public and defending himself from what …
Read More »Australian parliament passes law requiring Big Tech to pay media after last-minute changes prompted by Facebook news ban
The much-anticipated bill, which is widely expected to serve as a precedent other nations such as Canada might soon follow, seemingly puts an end to the heated row between Facebook and the Australian government that forced last-minute changes to the bill. The changes provided the tech firms with extra time …
Read More »As Australian government caves, Facebook announces first proposed deal with media after lifting own news content ban
Hours after Facebook reversed its controversial decision to prohibit Australians from accessing news content on the platform, the company announced its first proposed deal with one of the nation’s media organizations, Seven West Media. Alongside the statement on the discussions with Seven West Media, Facebook also revealed it is working …
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