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Amazon is looking to expand its footprint in the home appliance and consumer robotics markets as it plans to buy Roomba maker iRobot for $1.7 billion.
| Ticker | Security | last one | Change | change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMZN | AMAZON.COM INC. | 130.75 | -6.53 | -4.76% |
| IRBT | IROBOT CORP. | 58.83 | -0.22 | -0.37% |
Ron Knox, a senior researcher at the Institute for Environmental Sustainability, called on regulators to veto the deal, calling it the “most dangerous, risky” acquisition in the e-commerce behemoth’s history.
In the year In a lengthy tweet on Aug. 5, Knox argued that the deal would put Amazon’s biggest rival out of business and allow it to beat the rest of the competition with predatory pricing.
“Jeff Bezos has said he wants to take over Amazon. He’ll do it by snapping up Roomba and combining it with his massive monopoly power fueled by the Prime system,” he said. “There may be other smart spaces today, but Amazon Roomba ownership will never exist.”
Amazon raised more privacy concerns after it offered billions to acquire an iRobot medical service
Knox also said it will provide Amazon with an extensive source of data on the size, shape and layout of American homes.
“More advanced versions of Roomba collect data about your home when it’s being cleaned,” Knox adds. “It knows where you put your furniture, the size of each room, etc. It’s a vacuum and a mapping tool.”
Amazon has announced plans to buy Roomba maker iRobot for an all-cash deal valued at $1.7 billion for $61 million. (Alex Tye/SOPA Images/Lightrock via Getty Images/Getty Images)
iRobot founder and former chairman and president Helen Greiner told FOX Business that any privacy concerns surrounding the acquisition would be outweighed by the benefits of iRobot’s technology.
“I don’t think the robots are the problem in the house,” she said. “They are doing such important work for people. And I believe that Amazon is interested in the smart home and connected technology will all work together.”
According to Greiner, Roomba can integrate with Amazon Alexa and has improved image recognition with hundreds of data tokens supported by Amazon Web Services.
Greiner said that iRobot and Amazon have worked for years to build trust with their customers, and the deal will ultimately help them invest more in the robotics industry.
“You have to look. You have to read and you know, opt in when you want and don’t opt in where you don’t,” she said. “But I think it will be interesting to see where Amazon and iRobot take the technology.”
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Amazon emphasizes that the information it collects from customers will not be used for unauthorized purposes or sold to third parties to improve its products and services.
“Protecting customer data has always been incredibly important to Amazon, and we think we’ve been very good stewards of people’s data throughout our business,” an Amazon spokesperson told Fox Business. “We’ve worked hard to earn customer trust — and we’ll work harder to keep it — every day.”
The announcement of the iRobot deal follows Amazon’s previous acquisitions of Kiva Systems in 2012, EV Technologies in 2013, Blink in 2017 and Ring in 2018. In addition to obtaining regulatory approval, completion of the transaction is subject to the approval of iRobot’s stockholders.
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