Google will continue to protect users’ privacy: Fitbit CEO James Park

Park said Fitbit will maintain strong data privacy and security protections, give users control of their data

Google recently completed its $2.1 billion acquisition of fitness-gadget maker Fitbit in a deal that could help the search and advertising giant grow even stronger, amid an antitrust case being pursued against the internet company by US government regulators.

The completion of the purchase came over a year after the company first announced its intent to acquire Fitbit, which raised alarms among privacy activists as Google's primary source of income is the sale of ads based on data it collects on its users.

Soon after the deal went through, Fitbit CEO James Park sent out an open letter, seeking to assure Fitbit users that Google would protect their privacy and Fitbit users' data would not be used for Google's ads.

"When Eric and I founded Fitbit 13 years ago, we did so with a simple, but bold idea: to make everyone in the world healthier. Since shipping the original Fitbit tracker in 2009 to now having sold more than 120 million devices in over 100 countries, this mission has never wavered. Instead, millions of you joined that mission, and made Fitbit a movement that transformed lives. In some cases, we heard from our users that we even helped save lives. Together, we’ve taken 275 trillion steps and logged over 15 billion hours of sleep," Park said.

"We’ll be able to innovate faster, provide more choices, and make even better products to support your health and wellness needs. On our own, we pushed the bounds of what was possible from the wrist, pioneering step, heart rate, sleep and stress tracking," he said, adding that with access to Google’s incredible resources, knowledge and global platform, the "possibilities are truly limitless".

Park also sought to reassure users that Fitbit will, at its core, remain the same, saying "we’ll stay committed to doing what’s right, to putting your health and wellness at the center of everything we do and to offering a no-one-size-fits-all approach with choices that work across both Android and iOS".

Park also said Fitbit will maintain strong data privacy and security protections, give users control of their data and be transparent about what is collected. He said Google will continue to protect Fitbit users' privacy, and made binding commitments to global regulators that Fitbit users' data will not be used for Google ads and kept separate from Google ad data. He also said that Google will allow Fitbit users to connect to third party services.