Abstract
- Google has announced that it will end support for the third-party Fitbit app and watch face in the EU by June 2024 in response to the new regulations.
- Although the announcement does not directly attribute this to the EU Digital Markets Act, it is possible that the DMA had some influence on this decision.
- Non-compliance with the DMA can lead to hefty fines of up to 20% of global turnover for companies like Google, affecting industry practices.
Despite just coming into force, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in the European Union has been in the works for some time. Lawmakers have created regulations to maintain competition between dominant tech companies, including Google, Apple and Meta. As the business adjusts to these and other new ground rules, Google has made changes that will affect Fitbit devices.
Here’s how Google will comply with the DMA when it goes into effect
The EU is forcing Google to disconnect its services if you want it to
On a support page in the Fitbit Help Center, Google announced that third-party support for the Fitbit app and watch face will end in June 2024 (via 9to5Google ). While the company did not directly cite the DMA as a rationale for its decision, it did mention “regulatory requirements”. As for the devices that will be directly affected by the change, Google has identified Fitbit Sense (original), Fitbit Sense 2, Fitbit Versa (original), Fitbit Versa 2, Fitbit Versa 3, Fitbit Versa 4 and Fitbit Ionic.
Google is not the only company facing new EU regulations
Since the inception of the DMA, technology companies have had around six months to fully comply with the regulations before they come into effect in the EU. The European Commission has identified Alphabet, Meta, ByteDance, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft as “gatekeepers”. In the language of the DMA, this means that they provide a gateway between businesses and consumers in terms of accessing the services of the underlying platform. The DMA was developed as a means of preventing gatekeepers from reducing competition by preferential treatment of their own products.
Companies that do not comply with all aspects of the DMA in the EU are subject to special penalties. For example, they can be penalized up to 10% of their global traffic to begin with, but this can rise to 20% if no adjustments are made. Additionally, there is plenty of fine print built into the DMA for added consumer protection. For example, companies can no longer build profiles of customer behavior for their advertisers. While industry leaders refine their practices, it could take some time to smooth things out. In the process, we should expect changes like Google’s recent Fitbit decision.