What hazardous competition ?
Apple Watch is the leading smart watch maker by more than a mile.
You then have Samsung, Garmin, Oppo etc. with their own OS
At the professional level, there is literally only one brand which can be used to certify world records[0]. Garmin's track mode will eventually be competitive. But more competition would be a good thing.
Just in case anyone was confused, this is a joke. The IAAF relies on certified courses and timing systems for world records. No brand of fitness trackers are officially used for competition.
Some of the better fitness trackers do now have a "track run" activity mode which will use the known shapes of running tracks to smooth out the errors in GNSS signals. That gives a nice perfect oval shape on the map and ensures the distance is accurate. But that's still just for training and bragging rights, it doesn't really count for anything.
I don't understand that article. Was he running at a official race? What does it matter what his personal device uploads to STRAVA since there are offical time keepers.
It is specifically the data collection. Other companies are competing in the wearable industry, but no other company is collecting and aggregating data like Google is.
If you give Google your wearable data they will have an even more extraordinary advantage when it comes to targeted advertising.
This maneuver to acquire Fitbit should be blocked at all costs. Google should not be allowed to obtain this data.
That's weird. Usually the person advocating extraordinary action ("at all costs" were your words) should be able to articulate a supporting argument for their position.
But OK, lazy Internet person, I'll go first. Targeted search results and advertisements are very valuable time savers in my life. I strong prefer local results, results in my language, results relevant to my age and marital status, results relevant to my past purchase and shopping habits, results related to my upcoming calendar appointments, and so forth. All of these are quite valuable to me. If Google were to target ads for me based on my resting heart rate and number of miles I run every week, that seems fine to me. God only knows what Garmin and Strava are already doing with that data.
The category is bigger that smart watches esp. for which 'fitbit' is known. Google is a Giant, Garmin is an ant, in the bank and massive distribution power, brand. Lastly, region/quality matters. A customer in China is not the same as a customer in Africa, as a Customer in Europe etc. in terms of revenue, market power etc..
I'm just a little skeptical about how much value there is in this medical data given all the frameworks there already are in place to limit its use (HIPPA and similar). Theoretically, what specific not already illegal thing could google do with this health data that would be harmful to consumers? Ought we just make those things illegal?
From all the evidence I think it's most likely that Google wants fitbit to compete with apple watches and other wearables. To me, it seems like consumers would on net benefit more from deep-pocketed competition with apple in the wearables market.
Just to be pedantic, it's data purchased by any consumer wearable device that isn't regulated by HIPAA. Data recorded by devices provided, connected, or implanted by actual covered healthcare providers is regulated by HIPAA.
Thank you for pointing that out. If we believe that using such data for ad targeting would be a problem, it remains best to simply make that illegal. Preventing a particular acquisition seems like a roundabout and inefficient way to accomplish the goal, since it would not prevent Google from acquiring the data some other way, supposing they wanted to use it for targeting. And it prevents other potential benefits of an acquisition, such as more robust competition in the wearables market.
Depends on how profitable the small company is by their own lights I guess. If they need capital to continue operations, it has to come from somewhere.
What a bunch of malarkey. This paper is a product of the malarkey echo chamber. Just take one key phrase they try to scare you with: “G Suite for Healthcare Businesses", supposedly part of their big scary plan to dominate your life. First of all, not a Google product line, despite the capitalization and quotation marks. There is a marketing site that is meant to tell health businesses that Google Workspace is HIPAA-compliant, but that's it. The only other places where the phrase “G Suite for Healthcare Businesses" appears are thinly-sourced pseudo journalism and blog spam. So we know right there this position paper isn't based on research, it's based on reading blogs. It is echo chamber effluent.
The rest of it is just innuendo and second-order suppositions. There exists some company that once used Google Cloud APIs for their own health data, therefore this data -- somehow, through magic -- leaks out into "Google AI", a kind of scary overmind into which one shovels data and out of which comes all manner of scary outcomes. Except it's all bullshit, because there's no mechanism by which third party data that happens to use GCP just osmotically migrates into AdSense. This paper is 7 pages of bullshit.
Just like all the smart well compensated Wall Street employees protected our financial data? Let’s be real we’re being sold out by the rank and file too for the sweet price of a new Tesla and a Tahoe rental.
Googlers are not Wall Street sharks... not confuse species...
Googlers go on strike if a juicy deal is made with China in exchange to some complacency to state-censorship. Or when it's an Defense contract with any country.
Wall Street sharks just pop Champaign bottles when these kind of contracts happen, that's the difference.
You forget that there is a lot of self-checking of the company by other employees, and in the past you have numerous examples of the crowd undoing the misdeeds of the few.
Excuse me but you started off with “A is B” and I pointed out that well actually A is constituted of things that are actually some B but mostly C and a lot of D. Too which you respond “oh but I believe fervently that the part of A that is B will win out” and there’s really no point in getting wrapped up in such circular idiocy - as I have just now done. Doh. Happy Christmas.
I am sorry if I misunderstood your tone, but I only detected "emotional contents" namely insult-type content, and very poor quantity of arguments. I'm not a closed one, I am genuinely interested by what you think that could prove me wrong, only you did not spell it out yet. For example, could you explicit A, B, C, D... ?
When Google makes something not responsible, or, worse, evil, the numerous "responsible" people that have proven to be part of the staff in the past (see the examples) will make a fuss.
Shortly the misdeed would be made public, widely commented, the pressure would make the corporation take countermeasures to repair their image. That's what happened in these 2 examples, and this mechanism is still active.
I'm not saying that this will work every time. I'm just highlighting that at Google this mechanism is particularly strong (and so the hate towards Google less understandable).
Of course new laws would be even more convincing, if only for those corporations where the self-control is weaker.
Here I read that at least 4000 people signed a petition opposing the Maven project, and the project was abandoned as a consequence. Had it not been abandoned, probably even more engineers would have joined the march.
If was sufficient, and they maybe knew it. The memo was probably centered around the interested teams.
If the project had been maintained, you probably would have seen further actions... it's just like in the civil society (I mean, in politics, residents opposing local projects, etc), there is a kind of escalation.
Even if you think the personal morality of Google employees is a formidable check on its practices it's definitely not sufficient. I'd rather have more formal protections than rely on employees revolting against questionable practices as the only recourse.
I just think that everybody is overlooking Google's corporate culture and thus are imagining purely virtual evil scenarios that will not happen, like the health data sold to marketers.
From what I see of Google and the past public outcries, the company would be more interested in developing medical characterization of illnesses etc. Like Apple watch used to diagnose heart problems. There is a lot of "money" to be made ethically this way.
>Googlers are not that stupid, there would be huge internal strikes if the health data was sold to, say, health insurance companies.
So if any random set of employees at Google don't threaten to quit, that means that they're doing great? Also, why would any company sell the very thing that makes them money? :) They can make more money allowing companies to use the data by targeting certain users.
>By the past they have proven numerous time that they have a lot the sense of responsibilities -- as employees, as a whole.
What "sense of responsibility" does Google have? There is zero accountability here. They continue to spy on users and collect personal data, which now includes health data. A private company doing that for profit, makes it unethical in my view.
"They are not dumb" - and neither are most of the employees of nearly every other company that does unethical things. That's not an argument.
"By the past they have proven numerous time that they have a lot the sense of responsibilities -- as employees, as a whole." - arguable, but even if true companies and their cultures change. You cannot trust a company, especially a public one, as you can a human.
Ideally I would rather the amount I have to "trust" companies be reduced wherever possible and that's only achievable via regulations and enforcement of those regulations.
That's not true. I've met some people who work in financial-oriented companies, or companies with very aggressive marketing and IP protection... well they live up to their caricature.
At some end of the spectrum you have Google, Tesla ... at the other end you can find Oracle, Exxon, Disney (relatively to how they treat property rights), etc...
Which part of my comment is not true? That corporate culture changes with time? That you can't trust companies like you can humans? I'm genuinely curious with which part you disagree.
It's nice that you can feel morally superior by working at Google (I assume you work there by how hard you are claiming they are good) but please realize that sentiment is not universally shared. _You_ can trust Google to do the right thing but the replies in these comments alone show that there's at least a noteworthy amount of people who are distrustful or at least would rather not have to be trustful of Google. And this also applies to other mega-corporations too.
You not having concerns doesn't invalidate other people's concerns. Trust does alleviate concerns but for some people trusting a corporation is a very tenuous emotion.
What is not true is your position that the company culture is not responsible anymore at Google.
The company culture at Google was proven by the facts to be responsible not long ago (the refusal to negotiate with China, the refusal to make a contract with the Defense Department), and not enough time or not enough turnover has happened since to justify a change of mindset.
I agree that the culture of a company can change, but that only happens as a result when a lot of the staff change, and that they draw in different demographics for the newcomers (with different values, etc).
" there would be huge internal strikes if the health data was sold to, say, health insurance companies. "
? This is satire ?
They could pass it off as 'anonimized' data and sell it to medical companies.
Or sell ads on the basis of information collect from the devices, which would still be ostensibly anonymous theoretically.
Finally, the notion that we would depend on the willingness of some Mega Corps employees to possibly risk their jobs and put up a fuss, is just a step too far.
We might need some regulation here.
Also: there are material opportunities for advancement of health by having this information shared, we should also recognize that and possibly allow these things to be used as medical devices if people want them to be i.e. for research.
There has been and there is still a lot of self-checking at Google...
The own health data of Google employees too is in danger if they do dumb things with it (as I suspect that, like anybody, these engineers enjoy health wearables), so it would absolutely not stay unchecked.
Breach of privacy is not a step function, it's a slow boil.
It would be difficult to unwind what has largely been accepted practice for years.
The DNA-box companies sell randomized data to drug companies, to help literally make cures for disease. Not do bad. And it's random, and there's buy in.
I can see G people going for that: it's random data from Android devices, people are opting in etc..
I understand the risk, but I just feel that everybody is fretting while overestimating this risk and overlooking everything that already exists that can also very well keep this risk in check. Starting by the fact that any misdeed would be soon made public and widely commented, like always.
They may have a sense of their responsibilities but I know a lot of Googlers and they’re also extremely cavalier about collecting data and extremely certain in their ability to handle it properly. They don’t understand why I don’t like targeted ads and always respond when I complain with, “but don’t you want the ads you see to be relevant to your interests?”
My experience has been that people don't want ads but also usually aren't willing to pay to not have them. I just immediately write off anyone who complains about ads on YouTube, for instance.
Yeah I understand that they are doing only a categorization of the ads they are showing, without the marketers being the ones to choose their targets, and so from the Google point of view there should not be any data leakage problem...
I see that in theory you could game this system to play on the type of ads URL you send to each category, and thus try to indirectly get information about the IPs that visit your site, but I'm not sure how it is a viable strategy, how much mitigation is already in place by Google against that (surely they have thought about it), and how many marketers are ready to go theses lengths or even if any has already done it (Cambridge Analytica did it on FB, but arguably that was an easier system to game).
Fitbit has this slice of data but they are unable to combine it with any other slices of data. Google has all of the other data. Google acquiring Fitbit is Google purchasing health data. Fitbit is unable to acquire that data on their own, and they shouldn't be able to. No one should have ALL of that data.
I don't know the details, but do you have certainty that they are not planning to anonymize the data before transferring it to Google?
That's what pharmaceutical or medical ventures usually do, so that seems the sensible way to go.
Anyway this is probably not decided yet because it is very early, but Google would surely go the sane and rational way. Alphabet is already quite used to medical projects through Deepmind, and they do not breach accepted good practice guidelines.
Yeah but the point is that Google knows better than merely conform to the Law, especially in this era of irresponsible governments.
They can and often do more responsible things than just what is required.
It is not true for every industry player, here again the corporate culture has its role, so yes a good set of laws would do a great good. Then again, that only comes from a responsible government/politics.
Yes, although as the article says, gmail was the exception rather than the rule in that most other products did not use customer documents and data to personalize ads. In any case, that was three years ago, and it hardly seems likely that Google will go back to that practice given the increasingly sensitive views of the public toward the use of customer data. It is not my claim that Google would never have used Fitbit data in this way if it had acquired them in the past, only that it seems unlikely that they will on a forward-looking basis.
I made the mistake of getting my girlfriend one of these smart watches for Christmas. The companies in California are even telling her when to breath now, it's way creepier than I thought it would be.
Which watch, and what's the exact message it's sending about breathing? Is it something like "your O2 sat dropped to 98%, consider some deep breathing," or is it creepy because it's somehow based on her personal activity?
The Apple Watch has a "Breathe" app which by default tells you to spend a minute deep breathing twice a day for relaxation/de-stressing. It times this randomly (often inconveniently) and it isn't really connected to what you're doing beyond, I believe, knowing not to do it during the middle of a workout, and it's very easy to turn off.
I'm going to give the OP the benefit of the doubt and assume describing that as "the companies in California are even telling you when to breathe now!" is facetiousness.
If it's facetious then I don't even see the point of the comment at all. Why get a fitness-tracking watch if you don't want any of those features?? Or just turn them off?
See if anyone was truly concerned they could have put a coalition together and made their own offer for FitBit.
FitBit is an incredible company that deserves the Nobel prize for Medicine because they began what will eventually turn into a doctor on everyone's wrist.
But doing that is incredibly hard. they had to invent all kinds of hardware, software, data processing pipelines, models, et cetera.
And then Apple came in and cleaned their clock. they adapted and somehow pulled off the Versa 2, which was a huge breakthrough, but it was totally David vs. Goliath.
If you hate Google, fine, go after Google (here's a hint: abolish #ImaginaryPropertyLaws, the unjust set of laws from which Google derives all its unfair monopoly advantages), but don't sit back and watch while FitBit gets pummeled by monopolists and shorters and then when they reach out for help you attack the one company that came in to save them.
Pebble unfortunately also offered a functional, reasonably priced low power device and failed. Fitbit (arguably) has a much larger market but still is part of the problem there's just not that much of a market for small, low power minimal feature devices?
It'll be interesting to see how Wyze's Band and Watch sell.
the market for health wearables is 8B. that's people, not dollars. this could be the biggest future market there is. just look at the grin on tcook's face everytime he talks about apple health. we haven't seen this big an opportunity since personal computers. it will make phones look small by comparison. don't just look at what's out there today, look at what all the big dogs are spending money on trying to crack: passive blood sugar monitoring, stress levels, hormone levels, et cetera.
Tim Cook might sell a charger for less than what the Fitbit or Pebble cost, but he won't have any wearables at that price point. I emphasized low cost for a reason: that doesn't include Apple. Yet the Apple watch sells well. So either Pebble & Fitbit missed the mark by selling cheap or they need more features even at that price point.
I’m curious if any future antitrust settlements will require API interoperability. That’s the Apple Watch main advantage, deeper hooks into the ecosystem.
I wonder what it would take to get this idea to actually happen- that the proper response to some antitrust claims is not the incoherent "break them up" argument, but the "open them up" argument that prevents the actual abuses of monopoly that matter in information technology.
the answer is to abolish copyrights and patents. that is the only thing we should be talking about. everything else is a log(n) improvement whereas #abolishImaginaryProperty would be n^2 improvement.
There was nothing special about any of the Fitbit products including the Versa 2. They always had multiple competitors with equivalent or better features, not just Apple.
