Selected

South Sydney can lay claim to being the NRL's form team at the right time of the season after putting on their most ruthless performance of the year against Parramatta.

Souths put the competition on notice with their 26-0 win, with star fullback Latrell Mitchell warning top-of-the-table rivals the Rabbitohs were now coming for them.

A top-four spot is still not out of the question with three weeks until finals, however that would require results going in the Bunnies' favour over the coming weeks.

But regardless, there is little doubt that last year's grand finalists are one of the form teams in the competition heading towards September.

Since the NRL's representative weekend in June, the Souths have gone 6-1 in a record matched by only Cronulla and North Queensland.

The Bunnies have averaged 32 points a game in that time, the most of any team in the competition.

But this has not been at a defensive cost, only Cronulla have conceded less than the Rabbitohs' 15.86 points per game over the same period.

The Rabbitohs' revival has coincided with Mitchell's return from a hamstring injury, with the Souths fullback now clearly back to his damaging best.

The club's form is a far cry from the way in which they started the year, losing six of their first 11 games with a new coach in Jason Demetriou and no Adam Reynolds.

Demetriou refused to panic, sticking solid with selections as the Rabbitohs' attack finally clicked and Cody Walker began to shine again.

"I had a plan that I thought there was a journey we had to go on," Demetriou said.

"I was under no illusions of how tough the start to he season was going to be.

"We had a shocking preseason, off the back of extended time off because of [previously] being in the bubble.

"And then not starting until the back end of January because of COVID.

"But I sort of knew that the season was going to grow on us."

Demetriou however acknowledged the spotlight was burning,

Souths succumbed to the worst completion rate in the competition over the first half of the season as they struggled to find their groove before the recent run.

"We were we were under pressure. But every day I just kept waking up and reminding myself of what's in that changing room," he said.

"And that's a very talented footy team and a group of men that care about their club and their teammates.

"And as long as we stuck at that we were able to get through it.

"Our high-performance team and medical teams done a great job to get our key players on the field and fit and looking good at the right time."

The Rabbitohs should also get Campbell Graham and Lachlan Ilias back from injury against Penrith, while Tom Burgess returns from suspension.

© AAP 2022

Image: South Sydney Rabbitohs Facebook

Google has agreed to pay $60 million in penalties flowing from a long-running court fight with the Australian competition watchdog over the tech giant misleading users on the collection of personal location data.

In April last year, the Federal Court of Australia found Google breached consumer laws by misleading some local users into thinking the company was not collecting personal data about their location via mobile devices with Android operating systems.

The case revolved around whether it was sufficiently clear Google would still collect and access location data when a user's location history was set to "off" but their web and app activity was "on" and one of its apps was used.

The company was also found in breach of two other consumer laws concerning conduct liable to mislead the public and making misleading representations about a service's performance characteristics.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission at the time called the judgment a clear message to digital platforms to be up front with consumers about what is happening with their data.

On Friday, a brief Federal Court hearing was told a $60 million penalty was agreed as "fair and reasonable" between the parties and that a joint submission had been submitted to Justice Thomas Thawley.

The court heard possible issues still in play were whether the penalty made future conduct "economically irrational" and if the penalty was suitable.

Justice Thawley said he was satisfied the fine was in an appropriate range and thanked the parties before adjourning the case until later on Friday.

© AAP 2022