Google Is Basically Daring the Government to Block Its Fitbit Deal

The company’s moves into health data will test how serious antitrust enforcers are about privacy issues.

Google’s plan to buy Fitbit took chutzpah from the start. The company was already being investigated by Congress, state attorneys general, and federal antitrust regulators, a reflection of growing alarm over a conglomerate whose dominant market share is built on unrivaled access to personal data. Now it was announcing a $2.2 billion acquisition of a firm with troves of the most intimate details of its users’ physical health, from their heart rate to their exercise routines to how many hours they sleep at night. Fitbit was apparently worried enough about the threat of the deal being blocked that it negotiated a $250 million breakup fee in case of “a failure to obtain Antitrust Approvals.”

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Continua qui: https://www.wired.com/story/google-fitbit-project-nightingale-antitrust/