Before the Fitbit, the only way to know if you were meeting your daily fitness goals was to have an encounter with the bathroom scale in the morning.

Fitbit comes complete with a number of benefits. You can keep track of your health, use it in friendly competition with friends and family, and, most importantly, it’s independently owned.

This is part of the reason that it hasn’t fallen victim to one of those privacy/data scandals that have rocked the tech world over the last few years.

It’s also less judgy than that damn scale.

That could all change, though, because Fitbit has sold out – literally – to Google.

According to TIME, Google is buying Fitbit for $2,1 billion in an attempt to “help spur innovation in wearables”.

Many would argue that “innovation in wearables” was doing just fine. We have the Apple Watch which is breaking new ground, and even saved a hiker’s life recently.

So what’s the real goal, here, Google?

Google has already spent big money on wearable tech — in 2019, it paid $40 million for technology and personnel from watchmaker Fossil Group’s research and development team, for instance.

But the company’s products haven’t matched up to the competition, like the Apple Watch or Samsung’s Galaxy Watch. Fitbit’s technical chops could help Google come up with a wearable to take on its biggest rivals.

The smartwatch industry is booming and it makes sense that Google would want to try and get in on that, but that’s not what people are worried about.

Google has a sketchy track record when it comes to personal data. Have you ever briefly looked at a pair of shoes online only to find them in every sidebar on every website you visit thereafter?

There are a number of (frightening) ways that Google tracks and uses your personal data, search histories, and so on.

Hence, people are worried:

The most obvious potential lure is the health data of millions of Fitbit customers. Fitbit devices have been tracking wearers’ health metrics for over a decade, cataloging behaviors like steps taken, calories burned and exercises performed.

That’s just the kind of thing Google, fundamentally an advertising company, needs to further build out its profile of, well, you. Advertisers already take educated guesses at your health status, with apps like period trackers sharing your info with Facebook and others…

There’s the lesser known side business-to-business side of Fitbit, which is their partnerships with health insurance companies and direct corporate wellness programming,” says Gartner senior analyst Alan Antin. “Those are things that are a little bit harder for a company like Google to do.”

Well, with the acquisition of Fitbit, that could be about to change.

The Verge notes that Google is aware of user concerns which is why they tried to address them in the blog post announcing the sale.

Rick Osterloh, Google’s senior VP of devices & services, assures Fitbit owners that “We will never sell personal information to anyone. Fitbit health and wellness data will not be used for Google ads. And we will give Fitbit users the choice to review, move, or delete their data.”

This promise might not be enough for a lot of Fitbit users, many of whom are threatening to move to the Apple Watch.

Some would also argue that they should have done that years ago – it’s clearly a superior piece of technology.

Anyway, if you are a Fitbit user and the move to Google is giving you the creeps, follow this link for a step-by-step guide to deleting your info.

Then buy an Apple Watch, if only because it’s highly unlikely that they’ll ever sell out to Google.

[source:time&verge]