Google Wins EU Approval for Fitbit Bid Amid Tech Crackdown

Google won European Union approval for its $2.1 billion takeover of health tracker Fitbit, days after regulators proposed tougher rules to curb powerful technology firms' push into new services. From a report: The European Commission said Google's pledge to maintain access for rival health and fitness apps and device makers for 10 years removed its concerns about the U.S. tech giant's move into health data and devices. Smaller rivals previously complained that the company's promises might not go far enough to stop Google shutting off access in future to rival products or services.

"The commitments will determine how Google can use the data collected for ad purposes, how interoperability between competing wearables and Android will be safeguarded and how users can continue to share health and fitness data, if they choose to," Margrethe Vestager, the EU's antitrust chief, said in a statement Thursday. Approval comes in a harsh climate when Google and others are facing mounting scrutiny of acquisitions that help them push into new areas. Google announced its plans to buy Fitbit in November 2019, describing the bid for the smartwatch maker as a boost to its lagging hardware business.

Google VS Apple

[zenlessyank]

Who will win the tracking war?

Re:

[olsmeister]

Google. Apple can only track people that are active in the Apple ecosystem.

Re:

[luvirini]

Not sure about it, Facebook is currently doing a strong showing in that category.. I see a lot more "log in with facebook" buttons than "log in with google" and all those track you at least..

Also way more people give more of their data voluntarily to facobook than google.

Though google is also "doing well" due to their ad, mobile phone and search dominance.

so I would say it is hard to predict witch of those two companies will win the "worst at.. " trophy.

But Apples is far far behind due to their lower reach.

Re:

[Freischutz]

Google. Apple can only track people that are active in the Apple ecosystem.

No, Facebook, not only can Facebook track everybody regardless of platform, people voluntarily provide Facebook with the most intimate details of their private lives and all of their family photos.

Re:

[fph il quozientatore]

You mean the photo they took with their Google or Apple smartphone and that are automatically backed up to Google's or Apple's cloud?

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[ShanghaiBill]

Also, Apple makes most of its money from selling hardware. App store revenue is its 2nd biggest source of revenue.

For Google, collecting tracking data is its core business.

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[Carewolf]

Which just makes it so disagreeable that Apple still tracks everybody so hard. It is not even their core business, and yet they do it to such an extreme degree... What for?

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[bagofbeans]

Whoever gets the least fines when agreements are breached.

Re:

[ErleMatuee]

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Re:

[zenlessyank]

Go the fuck away, FBI man.