{"id":1668177,"date":"2022-10-02T00:05:24","date_gmt":"2022-10-02T04:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1668177"},"modified":"2022-10-02T00:05:34","modified_gmt":"2022-10-02T04:05:34","slug":"several-members-of-congress-want-to-block-amazons-acquisition-of-irobot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/several-members-of-congress-want-to-block-amazons-acquisition-of-irobot\/","title":{"rendered":"Several Members of Congress Want to Block Amazon\u2019s Acquisition of iRobot"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fseveral-members-of-congress-want-to-block-amazons-acquisition-of-irobot%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1668177&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Several members of the U.S. Congress <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/23082940-letter-to-ftc-on-amazon\">issued a letter<\/a> to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the announced acquisition of iRobot Corporation by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-amazon\">Amazon<\/a>.com Inc.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s why the lawmakers have concerns over the purchase.<\/p>\n<p> What Happened <\/p>\n<p>A letter recommending the FTC reject the planned acquisition of iRobot by Amazon.com was signed by some members of Congress.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have serious concerns about the Amazon-iRobot deal\u2014dominant companies like Amazon shouldn\u2019t be allowed to just buy their way out of competing,\u201d Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told Axios. \u201cThe FTC should oppose this proposed merger to protect competition, lower consumer prices, and rein in Amazon\u2019s well-documented anticompetitive activities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The letter argued the acquisition could \u201charm consumers and reduce competition\u201d in the home robotics segment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGiven Amazon\u2019s record of infringing on consumers\u2019 privacy, and their ongoing history of anticompetitive mergers to increase their monopoly power, the FTC should use its authority to oppose the Amazon\u2013iRobot transaction,\u201d the letter read.<\/p>\n<p>iRobot has a dominant market share in the smart vacuum market of around 75 percent, which could greatly impact competitors, according to the letter.<\/p>\n<p>The iRobot acquisition came after Amazon made several acquisitions in the home appliances space, as pointed out by the letter. This included Blink and Ring.<\/p>\n<p>The letter stated Amazon had a history of using a strategy of acquiring companies with strong market share and crushing its rivals by offering discounts and utilizing its huge customer base. The letter called this \u201ccopy-acquire-kill.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Data privacy concerns were also mentioned in the letter with iRobot giving Amazon access to mapping technology inside consumers\u2019 homes. The letter said the acquisition of iRobot combined with ownership of Ring and Blink would give Amazon \u201ceyes and ears inside the homes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The letter was signed by Warren along with the following members of Congress:<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.)<br \/>Rep. Mark Pocan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several members of the U.S. Congress issued a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the announced acquisition of iRobot Corporation by Amazon.com Inc. Here\u2019s why the lawmakers have concerns over the purchase. What Happened A letter recommending the FTC reject the planned acquisition of iRobot by Amazon.com was signed by some members of [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1668177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1668177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1668177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1668177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1668177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}