Democrats Demand FTC Probe Amazon-iRobot Deal (theverge.com) 47
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The Federal Trade Commission is facing mounting pressure to block Amazon's proposed $1.65 billion purchase of iRobot, the company behind Roomba autonomous vacuums. In a letter (PDF) to FTC Chair Lina Khan on Thursday, a group of Democratic lawmakers argued that the proposed merger would unfairly bolster Amazon's dominance in the smart home market by acquiring one of the company's leading competitors. They also criticized Amazon's data privacy and security practices following past acquisitions of companies like Ring, including data sharing partnerships with over 600 law enforcement agencies across the country. "iRobot is a powerful market incumbent, and Amazon, given its vast resources, history of producing smart vacuums... and powerful platform, is an extraordinarily significant 'potential entrant' into the market," the lawmakers wrote on Thursday. "Amazon's ability to acquire iRobot would cause substantially less competition." Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) led Thursday's letter along with four other House lawmakers, including Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), who represents thousands of Amazon workers in Seattle.
Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that antitrust enforcers at the FTC were already reviewing the proposed deal. iRobot confirmed in recent securities filings that the FTC formally requested any documents outlining the proposed purpose and scope of the merger. "Given Amazon's record of infringing on consumers' privacy, and their ongoing history of anticompetitive mergers to increase their monopoly power, the FTC should use its authority to oppose the Amazon -- iRobot transaction," the lawmakers wrote. These investigations would be led by Chair Khan, whose criticisms of Amazon's market power led to her rise in prominence. Khan published a legal paper in 2017 arguing that the federal government may need to pass new antitrust statutes to properly address the market dominance of online tech platforms like Amazon.
Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that antitrust enforcers at the FTC were already reviewing the proposed deal. iRobot confirmed in recent securities filings that the FTC formally requested any documents outlining the proposed purpose and scope of the merger. "Given Amazon's record of infringing on consumers' privacy, and their ongoing history of anticompetitive mergers to increase their monopoly power, the FTC should use its authority to oppose the Amazon -- iRobot transaction," the lawmakers wrote. These investigations would be led by Chair Khan, whose criticisms of Amazon's market power led to her rise in prominence. Khan published a legal paper in 2017 arguing that the federal government may need to pass new antitrust statutes to properly address the market dominance of online tech platforms like Amazon.
Lawmakers and regulation (Score:3, Insightful)
If they actually didn't like it they can pass a law authorizing the FTC to regulate something. Otherwise they are trolling for campaign donations.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Stick to some important shit, like how to stop fucking up the economy, thanks.
Elizabeth Warren is worried about the economy https://www.nbcnews.com/politi... [nbcnews.com]
It's possible that the government can deal with more than one problem at a time.
Re: (Score:1)
Sure it's possible, but history and experience have shown that, no, they really can't.
Re: More BS (Score:1)
The govt can't even deal with one thing without fucking it up, let alone more than one.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:More BS (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought that stopping mega-corporations from becoming even bigger while absorbing smaller competitors was protecting the economy? Do you really want to end up with only four technology companies on the planet?
Re: More BS (Score:1)
No, it isn't.
And no, I don't mind.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There's a lot of companies not owned by any of them. For home security cameras, I could go with a full system that's not connected to any of them either.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Are you really making the argument that the acquisition of a $1.9 billion company is beneath the FTC's attention? Especially when being bought by one of the largest companies in the world? Or maybe you think signing their name to a letter to the FTC is just too much attention?
Re: More BS (Score:2)
Yes.
Christ, $1.9B is chump change these days.
Re: More BS (Score:1)
Re: More BS (Score:2)
The ones that can spell "paid" get paid more.
Re:More BS (Score:5, Informative)
Market consolidation is "important shit". Here are the basics:
Capitalism only works when we have healthy competition in an open market. This is good for consumers as it pushes innovation while keeps quality high and prices low.
In any competition, there will be winners and losers. This is why unregulated capitalism naturally produces monopolies. When one large player dominates the market, they can use their position to crush any competition. When you own the market, you have no reason to innovate, maintain a high quality product, or keep prices low. This is bad for consumers.
In the past, companies used to collude with one another to act as a kind of monopoly. For example, prices wars are great for consumers, but hard on businesses. Rather than compete, players would all agree to fix prices or raise prices at the same time. This is called a trust, and it's bad for consumers. This is why we have laws against it.
When an industry is dominated by just a few players, they may not need to explicitly collude with one another to get the benefits of a trust. This is called tacit collusion. It's still illegal, but it's much harder to prove.
Re: (Score:1)
In any competition, there will be winners and losers. This is why unregulated capitalism naturally produces monopolies. When one large player dominates the market, they can use their position to crush any competition. When you own the market, you have no reason to innovate, maintain a high quality product, or keep prices low. This is bad for consumers.
In any federation, there will be winners and losers. This is why unregulated federalism naturally produces power monopolies. When one large central federal player dominates the market of legal and economic policies, they can use their position to crush any competition. When you own the legal/economic policy market, you have no reason to innovate, maintain a high quality product, or keep the price of your services lower than 7 trillion dollars a year. This is bad for 99% of humans who cannot ever save or inv
Re:More BS (Score:4, Informative)
It's not about vacuum cleaners. It's about robots mapping your house, which is extremely interesting information for Amazon.
They did? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Amazon and iRobot may not be direct competitors, but buying iRobot provides Amazon an even bigger advantage in the smart home market than they already had.
Buying a direct competitor is not the only form of anti-competitive behavior.
Re: (Score:2)
Besides having a microphone to listen they now have a floorplan and square footage of your home.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: They did? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
With the way things are going, I really don't want Amazon, Apple, Google or Microsoft buying up all the smaller companies.
For example, I've wanted a VR headset for quite a while, but the moment Facebook bought Oculus it was no longer an option. At first they promised that it would never be tied to a Facebook account (which I don't have and never will), then recently they switched it to a Meta account (which in my eyes is still the same company, no matter what they say).
Let's say the deal passes. If you buy
Re: (Score:2)
under the pretext of using "superior A.I. vision" to control the robot vs LIDAR or something else.
I can't imagine them even bothering with a pretext.
Re: They did? (Score:2)
long hair dont cair (Score:1)
Why not break up a real monopoly? (Score:2)
I get that Amazon is a big name and will make the headlines, which is why these politicians are making noise about them. But how exactly does Amazon owning a vacuum cleaner company give them some enormous and obvious advantage?
Compare that with the likes of Luxottica, which has had both John Oliver and 60 Minutes run specials highlighting the company's unethical and anti-competitive behavior. Those specials were run before they merged with their closest competitor! Why don't politicians get up in arms ab
Re: (Score:2)
I have read things aout Luxxotica for years. Those who would know or care about these types of things know about Luxxotica as much as this deal. I would absolutely support some amount of anti-trust against Luxxotica. That said I am in the USA so I don't think the FTC has as much jurisdiction there?
Also there is some degree of scale. For all it's market dominance Luxxotica has a cap of around 65B Euros and 10B in revenue compared to Amazon which has a cap of over 1T and revenue of almost 500B. Basically
Re: (Score:3)
An even better target for them is the hearing aid cartel. Not only have they been price gouging for decades, they've been gouging the federal government because their biggest customer is the VA.
Question: (Score:1)
Because... (Score:1)
Because in the Democratic Bible, it said Amazon is evil because it makes money.
Yeah, but I don't want it owning irobot either.
Democrats Demand More Money From Bezos (Score:2)