In the end, Google shared it had closed its deliberate acquisition of Fitbit. However there’s only one catch: the deal remains to be being investigated by the U.S. Division of Justice.
The corporate’s clarification for the weird transfer was that it had waited lengthy sufficient.
“We complied with the DOJ’s in depth overview for the previous 14 months, and the agreed upon ready interval expired with out their objection,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an emailed assertion. “We proceed to be in contact with them and we’re dedicated to answering any extra questions.”
Google additionally claimed the deal would improve competitors in a crowded wearables market, regardless of regulators’ issues concerning the opposite. For instance, provided that Google additionally designs smartphones’ Android working system, might it restrict sure functionalities — similar to with the ability to verify electronic mail on different wearables?
To assuage regulators, Google stated it could proceed to license public APIs overlaying all core functionalities in order that different wearables can proceed to function with an Android smartphone.
The corporate additionally addressed privateness questions, saying it could not use well being knowledge from wearable gadgets for its promoting enterprise, and would retailer Fitbit’s person knowledge in a separate “knowledge silo.”
These guarantees had been sufficient for the corporate to get the inexperienced mild from regulators with the European Fee, however Australian and U.S. regulators are nonetheless persevering with their investigation of the deal.
Google first introduced plans to amass Fitbit for $2.1 billion in 2019, addressing a gap within the tech large’s healthcare plans. Whereas the corporate has developed an working system for wearable gadgets, known as WearOS, it was primarily utilized by style manufacturers, similar to Fossil. It hadn’t made the identical strides in healthcare as rivals Fitbit or Apple, which each have FDA-cleared algorithms to detect atrial fibrillation and are utilizing their wearables for digital scientific trials.
That stated, Google is wading into the area. Final month, it rolled out a well being analysis app, with plans to review how respiratory diseases are transmitted along with Harvard Medical College and Boston Kids’s Hospital. Fitbit, too, has been assessing whether or not its gadgets could possibly be used to detect and observe the unfold of viral respiratory diseases.
Photograph credit score: Fitbit