CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s competition regulator on Tuesday delayed for three months its decision on Google’s plan to buy fitness gadget maker Fitbit for $2.1 billion despite the European Union giving conditional approval to the deal. Shares of Fitbit Inc. tumbled almost 7% before the opening bell. The European Union regulators last week approved the deal after Google promised to restrict user data and ensure Android phones work with other wearable devices for at least 10… Source link
Read More »Australian regulator delays decision on Google-Fitbit merger
TipRanks Goldman Sachs Says These 3 Stocks Could Surge Over 30% From Current Levels After a true annus horribilus, we’re all ready for better times. The US equity strategy team at Goldman Sachs, led by David Kostin, sees those better time ahead, and in the near-term. The team is predicting a 25% gain for the S&P 500 within the next 24 months – or to put it in absolute numbers, they believe the index will hit 4,600 by December 2022. Kostin lays out four clear reasons for believing that… Source link
Read More »Europe clears Google-Fitbit with a ten-year ban on using health data for ads – TechCrunch
Europe has greenlit Google’s $2.1BN acquisition of fitness wearable maker Fitbit, applying a number of conditions intended to shrink competition concerns over letting it gobble a major cache of health and wellness data following months of regulatory scrutiny of the deal. While Google announced its plan to buy Fitbit over a year ago, it only notified the transaction to the Commission on June 15, 2020 — meaning it’s taken half a year to be given a caveated go-ahead by Europe. It is… Source link
Read More »Europe urged to block Google-Fitbit ahead of major digital policy overhaul – TechCrunch
The European Commission must block the Google -Fitbit merger as a matter of democratic imperative, prominent academic and author Shoshana Zuboff has warned. The Harvard professor who wrote the defining book on surveillance capitalism has become the latest voice raised against the $2.1 billion data+devices deal — that’s now been delayed at the regulatory clearance stage for more than a year. Others calling for the Google-Fitbit acquisition to be blocked — unless or until robust… Source link
Read More »Europe urged to block Google-Fitbit ahead of major digital policy overhaul
The European Commission must block the Google -Fitbit merger as a matter of democratic imperative, prominent academic and author Shoshana Zuboff has warned. The Harvard professor who wrote the defining book on surveillance capitalism has become the latest voice raised against the $2.1 billion data+devices deal — that’s now been delayed at the regulatory clearance stage for more than a year. Others calling for the Google-Fitbit acquisition to be blocked — unless or until robust competition,… Source link
Read More »No Google-Fitbit merger without human rights remedies, says Amnesty to EU – TechCrunch
Human rights NGO, Amnesty International, has written to the EU’s competition regulator calling for Google’s acquisition of wearable maker Fitbit to be blocked — unless meaningful safeguards can be baked in. The tech giant announced its intent to splash $2.1 billion to acquire Fitbit a year ago but has yet to gain regulatory approval for the deal in the European Union. In a letter addressed to the blocs competition chief, Margrethe Vestager, Amnesty writes: “The commission… Source link
Read More »EU’s Google-Fitbit antitrust decision deadline pushed into 2021 – TechCrunch
The deadline for Europe to make a call on the Google -Fitbit merger has been pushed out again — with EU regulators now having until January 8, 2021, to take a decision. The latest change to the provisional deadline, spotted earlier by Reuters, could be the result of one of the parties asking for more time. Last month the deadline for a decision was extended until December 23 — potentially pushing the decision out beyond a year after Google announced its intention to buy Fitbit, back… Source link
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