Google offers not to use health data of Fitbit users in bid to win EU nod

Reuters reported last week that such a data pledge may likely help Google secure EU approval for its proposed $2.1 billion acquisition deal.

Alphabet Inc's Google has offered not to use health data of fitness tracker company Fitbit to help it target ads in an attempt to address EU antitrust concerns about its proposed $2.1 billion acquisition, the US tech company said late on Monday.

The bid, announced in November last year, would help Google take on market leader Apple and Samsung in the fitness-tracking and smart-watch market, alongside others including Huawei and Xiaomi.

"This deal is about devices, not data. We appreciate the opportunity to work with the European Commission on an approach that safeguards consumers' expectations that Fitbit device data won't be used for advertising," Google said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

Reuters reported last week that such a data pledge may likely help Google secure EU approval for the deal.

With just 3% of the global wearables market as of the first quarter of 2020, Fitbit is far behind Apple's 29.3% share and also trails Xiaomi, Samsung and Huawei, according to data from market research firm International Data Corp.

While the deal has drawn heavy criticism from privacy advocates on both sides of the Atlantic, on concerns that Google may use Fitbit's trove of health data to boost its dominance in online advertising and search, privacy issues do not fall under competition rules.

The European Commission is expected to seek feedback from rivals and users before deciding whether to approve the deal, demand more concessions or open a four-month-long investigation if it has serious concerns.

Japan's exports decline most since 2009 as Covid-19 hits US-bound shipments

The trade data came a day after the Bank of Japan increased its support through lending schemes for struggling businesses to $1 trillion.

Japan's exports fell in May at the fastest pace since the 2009 global financial crisis as U.S.-bound car shipments plunged, bolstering expectations for a deep contraction in the world's third-largest economy this quarter.

Weak global demand for cars and slowing business spending could drag on Japan's export-led economy, even as China-bound trade shows signs of picking up and U.S. and European economies reopen.

The trade data came a day after the Bank of Japan increased its support through lending schemes for struggling businesses to $1 trillion.

Ministry of Finance (MOF) data out Wednesday showed Japan's exports fell 28.3% in the year to May, worse than a 26.1% decrease expected by economists in a Reuters poll.

That followed a 21.9% decline in April and marked the biggest annual drop since September 2009.

U.S.-bound exports - Japan's key market -- halved to mark the biggest annual drop since March 2009, due to more than 70% declines in shipments of cars and car parts, the trade data showed.

Exports to China, Japan's largest trading partner, fell 1.9% in the year to May, a smaller drop than the prior month's 4% annual decline.

Shipments to Asia, which account for more than half of Japanese exports, declined 12%, and exports to the European Union also fell 33.8%.

Google ordered to pay for news taken from publishers in France

The French antitrust agency gave the Alphabet unit three months to thrash out deals with press publishers and agencies demanding talks on how to remunerate them for displaying their content.

Google was ordered by French antitrust regulators to pay publishers to display snippets of their articles after years of helping itself to excerpts for its own news service.
The French antitrust agency gave the Alphabet unit three months to thrash out deals with press publishers and agencies demanding talks on how to remunerate them for displaying their content.

The search engine giant may have abused its dominant market power, causing “serious and immediate harm” to the media, the Autorite de la concurrence warned in its statement on Thursday.

European publishers have been pushing regulators for over a decade to tackle the power of Google, which has lured away billions of euros in advertising revenue. This is the first time they have landed a punch. The EU has failed to act on complaints that Google unfairly displays publishers’ content.

“What’s clearly out of the question now is that the talks end with the same result as before: zero,” said Adrien Giraud, a lawyer who represents a grouping of newspapers, including Le Figaro, Les Echos and Le Monde. He says Google can expect publishers to reach out “as soon as this afternoon”.

The move is the latest crackdown on Silicon Valley by the French watchdog. Last month, Apple was fined a record ^1.1 billion ($1.2 billion) after the US tech giant was criticised for anti-competitive agreements with two distributors over the sale of non-iPhone products such as Apple Mac computers.

Google said it would comply with the French competition authority’s order, known as interim measures, and pointed out that it had already begun talks with publishing groups.

EU antitrust regulators are investigating Google's data collection

Last week, the EU competition enforcer sent out questionnaires to several companies, asking them about Google's data practices and giving them a month to reply.

European Union (EU) antitrust regulators are seeking details of Google's data collection practices, according to a document seen by Reuters, a move that could signal yet more regulatory woes for the world's most popular internet search engine.

The EU's executive Commission has handed down fines of more than 8 billion euros (£6.9 billion) to Alphabet unit Google in the last two years and ordered it to change its business practices, following an investigation that showed the company abused its dominance.

Last week, the EU competition enforcer sent out questionnaires to several companies, asking them about Google's data practices and giving them a month to reply.

The focus is on data related to local search services, online advertising, online ad targeting services, login services, web browsers and others.

Companies were asked about agreements providing data to Google or allowing it to collect data via their services in recent years, and whether they were compensated for this.

Regulators also wanted to know the kind of data sought by Google, how it uses it and how valuable the companies consider such data. Another question asked whether Google and the companies were subjected to contractual terms that prohibit or limit the use of the data.

Regulators also wanted to know if Google had refused to provide data and how this affected the companies.

The Commission declined to comment on the questionnaire and it was unclear which companies were canvassed.

In an email to Reuters, Google said: "We use data to make our services more useful and to show relevant advertising, and we give people the controls to manage, delete or transfer their data. We will continue to engage with the Commission and others on this important discussion for our industry."

Business Standard

How Big Tech armed and prepared itself to push back US antitrust onslaught

As news of the federal and congressional probes roiled the companies' shares this week, lawyers and executives working for Amazon, Facebook and Google were taking a wait-and-see approach.

Business Standard : Investors were caught off guard by the sudden US assault on tech
giants this week, but behind the scenes, the industry’s biggest firms have been preparing for this moment of reckoning for months.

They’ve hired lawyers and built up their lobbying shops in response to antitrust investigations that have been well under way in the European Union, and which are just now getting started in Washington.

Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook all have been working publicly and behind the scenes for months to make their cases for why they help competition, rather than harm it, and already have formidable teams in place.

As news of the federal and congressional probes roiled the companies’ shares this week, lawyers and executives working for Amazon, Facebook and Google were taking a wait-and-see approach, according to people familiar with the situation.

Google hasn’t discussed with the justice department, which is set to investigate the company, details about what antitrust officials will focus on, one of the people said. The search giant, for its part, has in the past faced intense antitrust challenges in the US and elsewhere, and already has a playbook for dealing with them.

Representatives of the firms have pointed fingers at each other as being the fattest targets for the government, even after news of the probes broke.

Spokespeople for Google, Amazon and Facebook declined to comment. Apple didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The government agencies themselves haven’t said what they intend to look at. Still, the move toward formal investigations is a clear escalation from the political rhetoric of the past year. “US President Donald Trump’s pretty clearly made some comments about this,’’ said Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, a think-tank that lobbies against excessive tech regulation. “Over the next 18 months you’re going to see FTC and DOJ certainly be making a lot more noise.”

The firms have been staffing their in-house legal teams with numerous antitrust lawyers who served in government. Google, Amazon and Facebook set company records for lobbying spending in 2018 as scrutiny of Big Tech intensified, according to Senate disclosures. They were already coming under pressure for issues including Russian campaign meddling, data breaches, efforts to draft a tough privacy law and to make tech companies responsible for the content disseminated by their services.