The European Commission has opened an “in-depth” investigation against Amazon after its acquisition of iRobot, the company behind the Roomba vacuum cleaners, for the advantages that the transactions could give to the former when it comes to “restricting” competition in the market for autonomous vacuum cleaners while “strengthening its position as a market provider”. According to the agency’s preliminary investigations, the acquisition “could” allow Amazon to limit competition by preventing or making it more difficult for rival vacuum cleaners to sell on its website, or by restricting their compatibility with other home devices, such as Alexa.
Likewise, the Commission ensures that the optional operation for the US multinational strengthens its online market niche by using the user data collected by iRobot to position ads and publicity related to its business interests.
In this way, the Commission concludes, “the transaction could raise the barriers to entry and expansion for Amazon’s competitors to the detriment of consumers.” Already in February, the newspaper ‘Financial Times’ announced that the European Commission would be thinking of launching an antitrust investigation against Amazon for this very matter, precisely because regulators were already concerned about the use of this data in anticompetitive practices.
