It's Official: EU Launches Antitrust Probe Into Google's Fitbit Takeover (cnn.com) 15
It was rumored last week and now it's official: the European Commission announced it is launching an in-depth antitrust investigation into Google's $2.1 billion bid for Fitbit. CNN reports: The European Union's top antitrust regulator said it is concerned that the takeover would further strengthen Google's market position in online advertising by "increasing the already vast amount of data that Google could use for personalization of the ads it serves and displays." Google announced it was buying Fitbit, the world's leading maker of wearable fitness activity trackers, in November. The deal, worth about $2.1 billion, is one of Google's largest acquisitions and represents an important step for the company into smartwatches and other wearable devices.
The Commission had already launched a preliminary investigation into the transaction. It said a commitment by Google not to use Fitbit data for advertising purposes was insufficient to address the concerns identified in the initial probe. The Commission's top antitrust official, Margrethe Vestager, said in a statement that the use of wearable devices by European consumers, as well as the data generated by them, is expected to grow significantly. "Our investigation aims to ensure that control by Google over data collected through wearable devices as a result of the transaction does not distort competition," Vestager said. In a blog post, Google Senior Vice President for Devices and Services Rick Osterloh said the deal "is about devices, not data," a market he said is full of competition. "We've been clear from the beginning that we will not use Fitbit health and wellness data for Google ads," Osterloh said. "We recently offered to make a legally binding commitment to the European Commission regarding our use of Fitbit data. As we do with all our products, we will give Fitbit users the choice to review, move or delete their data."
The Commission had already launched a preliminary investigation into the transaction. It said a commitment by Google not to use Fitbit data for advertising purposes was insufficient to address the concerns identified in the initial probe. The Commission's top antitrust official, Margrethe Vestager, said in a statement that the use of wearable devices by European consumers, as well as the data generated by them, is expected to grow significantly. "Our investigation aims to ensure that control by Google over data collected through wearable devices as a result of the transaction does not distort competition," Vestager said. In a blog post, Google Senior Vice President for Devices and Services Rick Osterloh said the deal "is about devices, not data," a market he said is full of competition. "We've been clear from the beginning that we will not use Fitbit health and wellness data for Google ads," Osterloh said. "We recently offered to make a legally binding commitment to the European Commission regarding our use of Fitbit data. As we do with all our products, we will give Fitbit users the choice to review, move or delete their data."
It sounds like EU wants to ban data businesses (Score:1)
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Perhaps the EU isn't for you? Have you thought of moving to America?
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With a capitalist oriented mindset there's a place for you in the EU where you vote for the (neo-)Liberal parties in the EU. Such parties exist in almost every EU nation and formed the formerly ALDE, which was renamed to Renew Europe [wikipedia.org]. They're also associated with Liberal International, which has members from all around the world, with a most notable except
Re:It sounds like EU wants to ban data businesses (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems like the EU wants to ban data driven advertising businesses.
The EU wants nothing of the sort. This is an antitrust probe. Nothing more. It doesn't matter if you're a data business or a retail business or if you sell OSes. Anti-trust laws are about abuse of market power.
But it hurts me, as a European, to realize that with this mindset we will never have anything that can rival the Silicon Valley.
Why does this hurt you? I think the evidence is clear that it is more damaging to actually have a Silicon Valley. I'm fine with lots of smaller more disperse services. We don't need to live in a world where everything is owned by one company without competition.
Europe still has a large tech industry and as a European I'm happy that it's built on a principle of not screwing over the user, through either excessive privacy invasion or for abuse of market power preventing competition.
I'd be wary. Would EU allow a rival? (Score:2)
If I had a Fitbit I'd be wary of it contacting Google and would want an easy way to turn that off. That said, it would be interesting to know whether the EU would have the same concern if an EU-based Google rival were to do the same thing. The point about it increasing Google's power does not seem to be a good argument, since obviously that is why anyone in the market would buy it. There needs to be strong rules and a high degree of personal control over personal medical data in the cloud.
*This* is why the EU is investigating antitrust? (Score:2)
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Google AMP was made by the devil himself.
Re:*This* is why the EU is investigating antitrust (Score:4, Informative)
Check out the summary of EU vs. Google here [wikipedia.org].