Answer given by Executive Vice-President Vestager on behalf of the European Commission

The parallel open public consultations on the Digital Services Act package and the New Competition Tool closed on 8 September 2020 with an extremely large amount of contributions, currently being reviewed.

In addition, research work is ongoing in the context of several external support studies. Subject to the outcome of the impact assessments, appropriate legislative proposals are planned for the end of 2020.

Regarding Google’s acquisition of Fitbit, o n 4 August 2020 the Commission opened an in-depth investigation and is currently assessing (i) the effects of Google’s prospective availability of Fitbit’s data on its online advertisement business, (ii) the likely effects of the concentration on the nascent digital healthcare sector, as well as (iii) the possible degradation of the interoperability of rivals’ wearables with Google’s Android operating system for smartphones.

In the investigation, besides focusing on the personal health data being accumulated in the hands of Google, especially as per (i) above, the Commission also takes into account applicable sector-specific rules, including data protection rules, as it has done in the review of previous transactions.