September 30, 2022
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is leading the charge in the U.S. Senate to persuade the Federal Trade Commission to block Amazon’s $1.7 billion takeover of iRobot, warning that approving the deal would hurt consumers and restrict competition.
“Rather than compete in a fair marketplace on its own merits, Amazon is following a familiar anticompetitive playbook: leveraging its massive market share and access to capital to buy or suppress popular products,” the letter, signed by Warren and other senators, reads.
According to the letter, Amazon has a history of anti-competitive and exploitative practices, and it opened its wallet to the Roomba maker after a lackluster public response to its own R2-D2-like Astro home robot. The letter also raises the possibility that Amazon could use data from iRobot devices to promote its own devices and further cement its dominance among consumers.
An Amazon spokesman said the letter contains a number of untruths and is generally inaccurate, and the company will continue to cooperate with regulators, while being confident that the deal is competitive and will improve and make customers’ lives better and easier.
The sources for this piece include an article in GIZMODO.
