According to a joint statement by the two companies, iRobot agreed to be acquired by Amazon for $1.7 billion. The deal would give Amazon access to interior maps of the homes of Roomba owners.
20 years ago, iRobot added consumer vacuums to its product line. The defense business was spun off. The homes the Roombas operate in are mapped with the help of sensors. The CEO of iRobot suggested in an interview that the company might one day give that data to tech companies.
Amazon could end up with a comprehensive look at what is happening inside people's homes. Ring and Eero were acquired by the ecommerce giant in the last 12 months. Thousands of smart home devices, including the Roomba vacuums, can now be controlled by speakers and other devices with the help of the artificial intelligence assistant, Amazon. The health data of millions would be kept by Amazon if it acquires One Medical.
A lot of people think of Amazon as an online seller, but it is actually a spy company. The director of Fight for the Future says that the core of the business model is monopoly power and profit. Amazon wants to have its hands everywhere, and acquiring a company that is built on mapping the insides of peoples homes seems like a natural extension of the surveillance reach that Amazon already has.
Amazon didn't respond to questions about how it would use iRobot data, but a statement from the company said it had been a good steward of customer data. Customer trust is something we have worked hard to earn and keep.
Those concerned with data privacy are uneasy because of Amazon's track record. Last month Ring, a company that forged partnerships with thousands of police and fire departments, admitted to sharing home video footage without a warrant. The threat of being a single point of failure for democracy and human rights is posed by the amount of data in the hands of one company.
Astro is the company's own home robot. David Limp, senior vice president of devices and services at Amazon, said at the time that the robot had no use case. In an interview with WIRED in June, Ken Washington said the initial focus is home monitoring and security.
Astro is only available to invited people. Washington did not give the number of Astro in people's homes today or when it will be available. Amazon pushed an update to Astro that allows people to add rooms to a home map without having to re map the whole house.
Climbing stairs and coordination between Astros on multiple floors are part of the product development plan for the Amazon home robot. The iRobot acquisition would give Amazon an instant home mapping presence at a huge scale.
The deal could face scrutiny from the FTC. Privacy advocates have been vocal in their opposition to Big Tech acquisitions. In May, the five-member commission solidified the Democrats' majority. Khan came to prominence after a Yale Law Journal article that looked at antitrust law in a different way.
There are a lot of aspects of people's lives that Amazon doesn't have access to. What people eat, buy, watch, read, and the prescription drugs they consume are all tracked by it. Soon, it may be able to see every part of their homes.
The story was changed to add a comment from an Amazon spokesman.
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