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by ravenstine
1919 days ago
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It's certainly possible that Google would kill FitBit, but I have a feeling they're looking far ahead and seeing the potential in being the predominant biometrics company. Biometrics may be the next frontier in how Silicon Valley will make money from our data. Run of the mill internet data mining has been done to death, but if Google can get everyone to wear devices that will provide health data to potential buyers, that seems like a huge win for them. My suspicion as to why Google hasn't grabbed the accelerator on FitBit just yet is they're waiting for other companies like Oura to prematurely release their next "big thing" before they choose to blow that competition out of the water. There's a lot more that these companies could be doing with their fitness trackers, and it's a matter of who does it first at a large enough volume. |
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If that's the case, it's only likely to be so for a very few years before we start seeing at least the more progressive jurisdictions like California putting severe restrictions on how that data can be used—not just "with consent", but "at all", given how easy it is for them to tack any kind of "and we get to sell all your data" clause into a user agreement.