The rumors were true – Google is buying Fitbit.
This morning, Google and Fitbit announced that Google has entered into an agreement to buy the fitness and health wearable maker for $2.1 billion. They expect the transaction to close in 2020 following closing conditions and regulatory approvals.
What the hell does all of this mean? We’ll have more in a bit, but for now, Fitbit has said that strong privacy and security guidelines will not change. They will continue to put users in control of their own data as the company remains transparent about how that data is collected and why.
Google echoed that, saying that they “will be transparent about the data we collect and why,” and that they “will never sell personal information to anyone.” They promise not to use Fitbit health and wellness data for Google ads. They’ll also let Fitbit users choose to review, move, or delete their data.
As far as wearables go, Google says that this will only further their investment in Wear OS, their smartwatches platform. The investment part is news to us, since Google doesn’t even seem to think Wear OS is important enough for a time slot at its own developer conference, but that’s at least good to hear. They even penned a special blog post to say that they are “hard at work on the next evolution of Wear OS” and that working with Fitbit will help “bring the best of [their] smartwatch platforms and health applications together.”
Fitbit is going to be a part of Google, y’all.
This post was last modified on January 13, 2020 10:15 am