Is Amazon buying Roomba to steal your data?

In recent news, Amazon has acquired IRobot for $1.7 billion. This all-cash deal prices iRobot at $61 a share. iRobot is best known for its robotic Roomba vacuums but also makes other household items like robotic mops, pool cleaners, and mowers. This is Amazon’s fourth biggest acquisition so far after it purchased whole foods for $13.7 billion in 2017, MGM Studios for 8.45 billion last year, and One Medical for $3.9 billion last month. This deal increases Amazon’s investment in consumer robotics and homes. Roomba joins other Amazon-owned home products like Alexa the virtual assistant + speaker, voice-activated thermometers and microwaves, Ring video doorbell, and last year they released the Astro home robot, a device equipped with Alexa that can follow users around their homes.

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In a joint statement released by both companies, Amazon said “Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking.” An important thing to note in this speech is the phrase “customer obsession”. Amazon is a company that sells products but a $1 billion all-cash deal raises an interesting question. What could Amazon gain from this deal and why do they want a vacuum that bad?

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Data is king

To answer the question above let’s talk a little about data. In previous articles, we’ve spoken about how data is everything and everything is data. With growing technological advancements data collection and usage have become valuable tools for studying and influencing consumer behavior. Now with targeted advertising companies can tailor ads specifically to influence your purchasing decisions. For a company that sells products, data is king.

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Amazon wants iRobot for the maps it generates which helps it understand people’s homes. The Roomba vacuum learns, records, and maps spaces to help it clean. Some of them even come with low-resolution cameras. This is useful data that makes the Roomba worth 1.7 billion. With Roomba, Amazon now has access to consumers’ floor plans, how often they change, what’s been moved, how old your furniture is, etc. Having access to data like this not only gives Amazon access to private details of consumers but spatial data like this is useful for making future homes.

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Amazon already has a wide reach when it comes to surveilling individuals and harnessing their data. From Ring doorbells to Alexa, to now Roomba, they are slowly extending their reach into every aspect of human life. Data privacy experts warn that this could be a very dangerous problem for the future of data. Amazon has already been in a lot of data breach trouble in the past. Ring the doorbell company they own admitted to sharing customer data with police without even needing warrants for it. The company has also been accused of anti-competitive practices.

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When it comes to data laws, there is no unified data protection legislation in the USA, rather, there are a bunch of state and federal laws designed to protect the personal data of people residing in the US. The Federal Trade Commission is in charge of protecting consumers from deceptive practices on a federal level and according to the FTC “deceptive practices” include failing to comply with published data promises, failure to provide adequate personal data security, and deceptive advertising or marketing.

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With most data laws globally, consent is often in the hands of the data owner, and access and use of your data depend on disclosure. Simply put, all companies have to do to access your data is to ask you for it and tell you what they’re using it for. This sounds great in theory but when was the last time you read the terms and conditions of a device you owned before clicking “I agree” Do you know how much of your data you’ve consented to give away and to whom?

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In the future, companies will make billions by studying consumers and their environment, pushing ads, and selling you problems you didn’t know you had and products you didn’t even know you needed.

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So to the above question. Is amazon buying the Roomba to steal your data? They don’t need to steal what you’ve freely handed over by using their product. Learning how to protect your data is a helpful method to not feel exploited and mined for data. And lastly, beyond home cleaning products, there’s a lot more Amazon could get out of buying iRobot.

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