‘EU wants to extensively investigate Amazon takeover of Roomba maker iRobot’

The European Union would like to extensively investigate the planned takeover of Roomba manufacturer iRobot by Amazon. This is what the Reuters news agency writes. The EU is now conducting a preliminary investigation into the takeover.

This is a full investigation that will take four months, says Reuters. In theory, Amazon could still convince the EU to give the takeover the green light before then, but that is not obvious, according to the news agency. Reuters does not say what the investigation focuses on.

At an earlier stage it emerged that the EU is concerned, among other things, about the consequences for the privacy of users. This would specifically look at the vacuum cleaners’ ability to take photos as they move through a home. The EU is said to be looking at how the tech giant could use the acquisition to combine Roomba data with voice assistant Alexa to gain a competitive advantage.

The British competition authority has already approved the deal. Amazon announced in August last year that it wanted to acquire iRobot. The company wants to pay $1.7 billion for the robot vacuum cleaner manufacturer.

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