Google said on Thursday that it had completed a $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit, a fitness tracking company, although the U.S. Department of Justice said it would continue to investigate the deal, foreign media reported.

The U.S. Department of justice sued Google in October last year for violating antitrust laws in its search and search advertising business. The agency said it had not yet made a final decision on whether to take enforcement action on the Fitbit deal.

A Google spokesman said: "in the past 14 months, we have complied with the extensive review of the Ministry of justice, and the agreed waiting period has passed without any objection from them. We will continue to keep in touch with them and commit ourselves to answering any other questions. "

It is rare to complete a large deal without antitrust approval. Australia has yet to approve the deal. Google got approval last month from the EU antitrust agency to buy Fitbit after agreeing to restrict how it uses its customers' health-related data.

Fitbit makes devices like smart watches to monitor physical activity, competing with apple watch and other products. The device can monitor the user's steps, calories burned, heart rate, as well as people's sleep time and sleep quality. Fitbit is said to have 29 million active users.

Google said it bought Fitbit to compete in the wearable device market. "This deal is about devices, not data, and we have made it clear that we will protect the privacy of Fitbit users," Rick osterloh, the company's senior vice president for devices and services, said in a statement

Google's plan to buy Fitbit raised a lot of concerns when it was announced at the end of 2019, because the company already has a wealth of data, including personal online browsing history, records of goods they buy and where they have traveled. (small)

Source: Netease technology report, translated by Baidu