On Thursday, Australian blogger Belle Gibson, 25, was fined $410,000 by the Federal Court in Melbourne for the fact that she earned money by deceiving her readers, ABC television channel reported.

Gibson created $420,000 empire on internet

The justice of the federal court Debra Mortimer ruled that Gibson misled readers, saying that she managed to cure brain cancer with the help of alternative medicine and specialized nutrition. Later it turned out that the information that Gibson had cancer was false.

According to the TV channel, the woman earned $420,000, creating a media empire on social networks, and also releasing "The Whole Pantry" Recipe Book and an appropriate appendix on a healthy lifestyle.

In 2014, Elle Australia magazine recognized Gibson as "the most inspiring person." "The Whole Pantry" recipe book was launched in the US in April 2015.

The investigation into Australian affairs was initiated by the Victoria Consumer Affairs Department. Last summer, a civil case was initiated against Gibson. The court concluded that the woman had lied to her readers that profits earned from the sale of her application and the books were donated to charity. Gibson's app was downloaded 411,000 times, and 16,000 copies of her books were also sold.

Gibson fined for five separate contraventions

Gibson has been fined for five separate violations of the Australian Consumer Law Act. Her fine includes $90,000 and $50,000 for not donating proceeds from the sale and launch of "The Whole Pantry" app respectively.

She was fined $150,000 for failing to pay 100 percent app sales of one week to Joshua Schwarz's family, a boy whose brain tumor had not been operated on.

Mortimer considered failing to donate to the family of Joshua Schwarz as the most serious violation of the law. She said that despite Gibson's statement that a large part of the company's earnings was donated to charities, only $10,800 from the total earnings of $420,000 was donated to only three charities, the Telegraph reported.

Asylum Seekers Resource Center (ASRC) is one of the charities nominated by Gibson, claimed that it had not received any donations. In 2013, Gibson made her profile and claimed from her social media accounts that she was diagnosed with brain cancer and healed it herself naturally. Later in 2015, she admitted that she never had cancer.

In 2014, Apple Inc. sent her invitation to attend its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.
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