Online rental booking site Airbnb was fined AU$15 million (US$10 million) by a court in Australia, and ordered to pay an additional AU $15 million in compensation for not specifying to customers that some listings were not in Australian dollars, leading thousands of customers to pay higher prices.

On Wednesday, federal court Justice Shaun McElwaine noted that Airbnb had not clearly disclosed to customers that listings were in US dollars, only noting it at the bottom of the first three pages of the listings, and then more prominently on the fourth pages, where the user confirmed the rental of the accommodation.

McElwaine noted that this was advantageous to the company, as it made the listings appear cheaper than listings at rival websites, due to the exchange rate.

Since at the time the Australian dollar was trading at about 72 cents compared to an American dollar, some customers who thought they would be paying AU$500 for a rental when they booked it later found out they had paid nearly AU$700, prior to any conversion fees.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) had taken the company to federal court in June of 2022. The booking firm was found to have made false or misleading claims to about 70,000 users between 2018 and August 2021.

Early in the case, Airbnb stipulated that it had violated the consumer laws of Australia through the listings. However the company said it was really the fault of a software bug which had failed to present users in Australia pages in the local currency. The court found however, that the board of Airbnb had  been aware of customer complaints going back as far as 2018.

Customers who were affected are now expected to be paid about $156 each, depending on the specific aspects of their booking costs, the exchange rate, and additional charges.