9 months ago, we made a short tutorial on how you can secure your data before Google finally completes its acquisition of the fitness tracker brand, FitBit.
The search giant is said to be eyeing the fitness tracker industry which is why it bought Fitbit in the first place but then there might just be a hurdle for Google to jump through in order to secure it’s place in the new market it’s trying to explore which is the EU Competition Commission readying to go on a full open-scale investigation about the purchase according to a new report gotten from Reuters on Thursday.
The acquisition is thought to be in the region of US$2.1BN back in November of 2019 but the search giant had been trying in it’s very possibilities to not get investigated by the EU anti-trust body. But in the company’s bid to secure the approval, it stated it won’t be using customer’s health data that it gets from Fitbit to target them with advertisements.
The deal will let Google stand a chance in its bid tot compete against other tech giants such as Apple, Huawei and Samsung and even Xiaomi’s Huami in the fitness tracker market which showed that Google is ultimately trying to expand it’s reach far beyond just the software region since we’ve already seen Google smartphones and even their earbuds.
And for the foreseeable future of the industry, Google seems to be interested as this is a profitable venture it can invest it’s top dollars on. But the EU on the other hand seems to not be having it as the body wants to get to the bottom of things and understand if the search giant is into any anti-competitive practices.
The Commission is said to have begun conducting its preliminary review into the matter which is due to conclude by August 4th after then announce an antitrust investigation according to Reuters.
Meanwhile a spokesperson for the European Competition Commission has declined to comment on the matter.
Google on the other hand isn’t facing antitrust investigations for the first time as the company had landed by some big fines since 2017, 2018 and 2019 with fines about US$9.3 billion for breaking the EU competition rules set in place.
Google didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.