'We don't agree with the extensive branding Garmin is forcing' Strava breaks silence on the ongoing Garmin dispute – and outlines next steps

• Strava has commented on its ongoing feud with Garmin
• While it can't comment on the legal dispute, Strava did provide a statement to TechRadar
• The statement all but confirmed it would capitulate to some of Garmin's demands, despite stating "we don't agree"

Strava has broken its silence on its ongoing feud with Garmin, offering a statement to TechRadar after I reached out for comment. Strava said that "while we don't agree" with Garmin's terms, it will change how it attributes data from its partners, outlining its next steps.

What's happening?

For those not in the know, Strava filed a lawsuit against Garmin, citing its breach of patents referring to segments and heatmaps, asking it to temporarily halt the sale of the best Garmin watches.

Strava's chief product officer Matt Salazar later posted on Reddit, stating it was "setting the record straight about Garmin", but referring to a completely different issue, in which Garmin wants expanded attribution (including a logo) when a Strava user uploads data from a Garmin watch. This is due to go into effect November 1.

In the Reddit post, Salazar accused Garmin of using "Strava and every other partner as an advertising platform – they told us they care more about their marketing than your user experience". Strava said "we consider this to be YOUR data" and asked users to make their voices heard.

Unfortunately, this backfired, as the post has 0 upvotes and more than 1,400 comments. Strava users made it clear that if they had to choose between their app subscription and their expensive running watch, they would choose their Garmin, and accused Strava of hypocrisy. For the full breakdown, you can see our detailed writeup of the Strava-Garmin-Suunto situation.

Setting the record straight about Garmin from r/Strava

Strava's statement

I reached out to both Strava and Garmin for comment on the issue, and while Garmin told me it simply couldn't comment on legal disputes, Strava offered a more substantial statement.

"Unfortunately, we aren’t able to comment on ongoing disputes. While we don’t agree with the extensive branding Garmin is forcing, uninterrupted connectivity for the subset of our community that uses Garmin remains our top priority, and we have also decided that we will give similar attribution to all of our device partners going forward to be fair.

"Our aim is to make branding as unintrusive as possible, and we believe it is the right thing to do in light of the mandatory changes that Garmin is asking all developers to implement by November 1st."

Unpacking this statement, it seems as though Strava will be capitulating to Garmin's demands for attribution, applying its logo to Strava posts uploaded from Garmin devices. Strava's doing this for an easier time of it, as a lot of Strava's data originates from Garmin watches and cycling computers – cutting that source of data off completely would be disastrous. Strava is reportedly mulling an IPO, so it wants to look as good as possible before appearing on the stock exchange.

It seems Strava will be building this expanded attribution functionality into data pulled from all its partners "to be fair", so expect workouts originally from Apple Watches, Samsung watches and other devices to carry their own logos going forward.

This ties into a report from Gadgets and Wearables, in which communications from Strava to developers show instructions to build this into future apps, if they use data originating from Garmin devices via Strava's application programming interface.

In terms of the legal disputes regarding the potential patent infringements by Garmin, neither side is commenting yet. The two issues are certainly tied up together, so I wonder if now that one seems to be resolving, Strava will withdraw its lawsuit or look to quietly settle out of court. Either way, I can't imagine Garmin's best running watches will be pulled off the shelves before Black Friday.

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