The competition authorities of the EU Commission have expressed concerns against the planned Takeover of the fitness watches-specialists Fitbit by the Online giant Google. It must be ensured that the control, the get Google as a result of the Acquisition of data, lead to a distortion of competition, informed the Vice-President responsible Margrethe Vestager on Tuesday. Therefore, I will now initiated an in-depth investigation.
it could lead to the proposed Acquisition subject to conditions or even prohibited. The result should be no later than 9. December fixed.
Specifically, in the investigation that the Takeover could have, in the opinion of the competition authorities negative impact on the markets for Online advertising. “If Google expands its data, advantage of the personalization of ads placed on its search engine and other websites, shows, more, it would be for competitors more difficult, with the Online advertising services of Google to keep up,” says the Commission.
advertising
This use would be created for competitors, barriers to market entry and barriers to Expansion –which would ultimately be to the detriment of advertisers and web site operators, the higher prices would have to pay, and less choice would have.
“It is assumed that the European consumers are to use mobile devices in the coming years, more and more intense,” said Vestager to the concerns. This will go hand-in-hand with an exponential increase in through these devices the generated data and companies also offer deep insights into the life and health of their users.
From Google back in July, offered concessions to the EU Commission rejected the decision for the in-depth investigation as inadequate. They had passed out of the deal, via mobile devices, data collected separately from the other data sets of Google silo separated into a “Data” store. This data would have been from Google not used for advertising purposes.
From two directions, rolled up
Google announced in early November of last year, plans for the Acquisition of a Fitbit for a little over two billion dollars. It was said that the data of the Fitness specialist should not be used for personalized advertising. In the beginning of the year, European data protection specialists warned, however, further accumulation of user information in the hands of a major Tech company was a risk for the protection of privacy.
Google’s Hardware-in-chief, Rick Osterloh, confirmed in a blog post on Tuesday, “the health and Wellness data from Fitbit” would not be used for Google Ads. The Fitbit users will get as usual the choice to delete your data, instead of moving to Google. “In this Deal it comes to devices and not data,” he said. The group believe that the combination of Google and Fitbit will be an increase in competition in the business –because the next Generation of devices will be better and more affordable.
