17 ms·

FTC Investigating Amazon’s Acquisition of iRobot

121 points by kristianpaul 4y ago

wiremine 4y ago
This story mostly regurgitates this Politico story: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/02/amazons-ftc-problem-keeps-growing-with-irobot-one-medical-probes-00054749 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/02/amazons-ftc-problem... The key paragraph: "Among the concerns the FTC is investigating is whether the data generated about a consumer’s home by iRobot’s Roomba vacuum will give it an unfair advantage over a wide variety of other retailers. That concern was voiced by multiple critics of the deal when it was first announced early this month. For example, Amazon could have an advantage with a consumer looking to buy a couch, by using detailed home maps generated by iRobot to suggested particular items." How detailed are the maps? I'm assuming they're using SLAM. [1] If so, the maps aren't that detailed, and I struggle to see how the maps will give them an unfair _retail_ advantage. I do get the need for the review, it's just this point that doesn't make sense to me. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_and_mapping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_and_...
- samatman 4y ago
  This is Amazon, the company which still offers to sell me more vacuum cleaners after I buy one. The company which will completely ignore keywords like "6A" in a desperate attempt to show you anything but what you're looking for. I'm not so worried! Added: this is also the company which sells a popular line of home-security cameras, some of which are meant to be installed indoors. Worrying about your vacuum snitching on you makes good sci-fi but maybe this product isn't where regulators should be focusing.
  - liveoneggs 4y ago
    vacuums need friends!
    - rovr138 4y ago
      I have 4 and should probably buy that wet/dry shop vac I've been meaning to.
  - josho 4y ago
    The reason after you make a purchase you still see offers for the same product is because you are still statistically more likely to purchase a vacuum than average. What if the vacuum doesn’t work well, it’s too heavy, the package doesn’t arrive? You’ll be turning around and buying another.
    - stepanhruda 4y ago
      Would mainly make sense if I returned the original order, otherwise there must be much more efficient use of the recommendation space.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - vntok 4y ago
        Well, no there isn't, and this company has the best data available on the planet to prove it.
        CamperBob2 4y ago
        There should be a corollary to Hanlon's Razor. Something like, "Don't attribute to genius that which is adequately explained by laziness." Frankly, calling it Bezos's Razor would be very appropriate, because that's basically how the whole Amazon storefront works.
        vntok 4y ago
        Not quite. ML algorithms that continuously crunch billions of data points don't need to be called "genius", they're simply way more exhaustive in their search of optimums than "a vague idea from a regular person on the Internet that the best reaction to such situation is to do x" (with absolutely zero evidence to show for it of course).
    - coredog64 4y ago
      AIUI, recommendations can come from multiple providers. If very detailed recommendations that take into account the fact that you’ve already bought a vacuum timeout, then your recommendations come from a dumber provider that is based on recent searches.
  - wongarsu 4y ago
    Just because they are inept now doesn't mean we should allow them something that could turn into an unfair advantage once they figure out how to actually do it.
  - SicSemperUranus 4y ago
    So your argument is Amazon is too dumb to be a threat? Even if we assume this is true for the present, seems very short-sighted to me.
  - josefresco 4y ago
    Yes but.... Amazon would be happy to sell your data to a company who knows how to abuse it!
- marcinzm 4y ago
  The issue probably isn't the final map but the raw data used to generate it. Which in the case of the newer iRobots is cameras. So the question is, how much is extensive continuously updated photos of everything in your house worth to Amazon?
  - phkahler 4y ago
    For example, you search for decorative pillows and they filter based on those that match the style and color scheme of your living room. That would be an advantage over other retailers, and is just one simple example. OTOH implementation is everything and that wouldn't work well if you just ordered new furniture from somewhere else and are looking for pillows to match that.
    - treis 4y ago
      If they could actually provide filters like that people would give them pictures of their couch and living room.
    - edgyquant 4y ago
      Yeah but this sounds like an awesome service, actually
- naillo 4y ago
  Huh? As long as they have pictures, they can just run a classifier on it to figure out if you have couch etc. SLAM or not doesn't matter.
- huhtenberg 4y ago
  Even if the maps are basic, it would allow Amazon to jack up the prices for amazon.com queries from the same IP address if the place, say, is really big. iRobot app also encourages naming all areas in the house, so that too can be pretty telling. In fact, iRobot requires the access to the location services to initialize their iOS apps, so even without a map this would allow Amazon to link an IP address to the exact property. Creative abuse of this combo can go a very long way.
  - helen___keller 4y ago
    Although I agree with the general concern > it would allow Amazon to jack up the prices for amazon.com queries from the same IP address if the place, say, is really big. Afaik this sort of airline-style price discrimination is not something amazon engages in ever. Maybe I’m misinformed
    - dylan604 4y ago
      I think rather than misinformed, you just left out a word in your claim. If you added the word "yet", then it would seem more appropriate to me. If the advertising world believes that targeted ads are the holy grail, then why wouldn't retailers believe targeted pricing to be also be the holy grail?
      - helen___keller 4y ago
        Targeted pricing is the holy grail, it’s just normally done through market segmentation and targeted advertisement. My personal belief is that if Amazon tried what you’re suggesting, they’d be shooting themselves in the foot (lose any remaining customer trust, regulators would be all over them, and competitors like Walmart would use it to gain market share overnight). In fact I was really hoping you’d share an article describing Amazon doing this so I have justification to cancel prime, ha!
        dylan604 4y ago
        Honestly, I was just going all 1984 on the concept. However, if Amazon was really wanting to do this, they already know the avg income on everyone of their customers that have an Amazon credit card. That would be the ultimate in targeted pricing. Not just Amazon, any store branded card.
- voqv 4y ago
  Even occupancy grids can be used to detect if you some kind of furniture or what kind of windows you have. Also, iRobot added visual slam some time ago, those maps can give huge amount of detail even if they don't contain images, just feature based bag of words models.
- reaperducer 4y ago
  How detailed are the maps? Pretty detailed. I used to own one of the high-end Roombas that would show you a map of your house, and the wifi signal strength in all the nooks and crannies (really quite useful when you move to a new home). It doesn't show what kind of chair you have or what you have on the walls, or anything like that. But it's not hard at all to determine the size of the rooms, the layout, the placement of key pieces of furniture, and similar things. From the way a home is arranged and the amount of furniture, I can easily think of ways that the map could be used to infer information about a home. (Larger couch and entertainment center may indicate someone more interested in consuming media. Individual chairs around a smaller coffee table — perhaps they like entertaining.) The maps are far from accurate, since there are a number of problems with a Roomba building a full map: Closed doors; areas cordoned off by lighthouses; unless you put blue painter's tape over the sensors, Roomba thinks rugs with black in them are cliffs. But the maps don't have to be prefect to be very revealing. Especially since the higher-level Roombas have cameras on them. I don't know how detailed the images they capture are, but even if they are only vague monochrome blurs, that's enough to determine patterns of activity in the house. (Family regularly comes home at 5pm? Start advertising dinner food on partner web sites and apps.)
- edgyquant 4y ago
  Just because the maps aren’t detailed enough for this use today doesn’t mean Amazon won’t add the ability going forward
- spoonjim 4y ago
  If you're talking about SLAM you're overanalyzing the situation. Essentially, unfettered decades of rapacious corporate abuse has created a group of people who are essentially skeptical of anything that big business does. FTC Commissioner Lina Khan is one of those people and is now coming at Big Tech with a broadsword. Because Big Tech is so abusive, most of this makes sense, but much of it does not (eg. blocking a small VR app acquisition by Facebook)
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > How detailed are the maps? I'm assuming they're using SLAM. [1] If so, the maps aren't that detailed A few years ago I would have probably agreed. But modern machine learning can draw spooky inferences from seemingly sparse data, on a scale that makes it practical. As the roomba bumps around a room it will learn where obstacles are but not what those obstacles are. But the size and shape of the footprint of those obstacles probably contains enough information to make guesses at what those might be. Approximate identification of some obstacles as couches is probably possible, just from the size and shape, and likely the position of those obstacles in the room. That won't tell you how old the couch is, or whether it's worn out or not, but if the roomba can't find any probable couches in that person's house, advertising couches to that person may pay off. Also, did the roomba start finding a new room recently, but the other rooms have remained the same? That person may have build an addition to their house, or started furnishing their basement. Did all the rooms change but the roomba is still paired to the same smartphone? They may have moved into a new home. In either case, if the new room[s] don't have couch-shaped obstacles, advertise couches. And this is just with the bumpers. If Amazon adds a camera to roombas, the snooping potential is obvious.
  - benjaminmaccini 4y ago
    Yep, pretty much exactly this. I've spent some time with SLAM, and in my experience, it's usually just a part of a larger ML pipeline. Not only can SLAM be paired with external data sources to generate labeled 3D objects, but inferences can be drawn directly from a generated point cloud without any ML involved. My best guess for this is that floor plans and furniture can be used to _fingerprint_ a user, rather than knowing that the user owns a couch so that The Company can recommend a particular CPG. Knowing who their target demographics are with greater accuracy certainly feeds back into their recommender systems, but not so directly, which makes me concerned for this investigation's success.
- brianwawok 4y ago
  My map is very detailed. Down to a few inches. It also has me label rooms, so it knows my Living Room vs Bedroom vs Bathroom.
danielfoster 4y ago
This article is misleading. It’s the only source I can find claiming that there is an FTC investigation. This sounds like part of the FTC’s antitrust review for the acquisition, which is standard procedure. The iRobot’s stock price also has not tanked, suggesting that this is indeed just a standard review rather than an investigation.
- Overtonwindow 4y ago
  https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/02/amazons-ftc-problem-keeps-growing-with-irobot-one-medical-probes-00054749 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/02/amazons-ftc-problem...
- adolph 4y ago
  It’s still sommer. Maybe leaky Feds need more shorts?
Overtonwindow 4y ago
It's getting harder to stay out of the orbit of Facebook and Amazon. When Meta bought Oculus I gave mine away. I'm keeping the Roomba but.. I am wary of it now.
- NotYourLawyer 4y ago
  I feel the same way about eero.
  - cptcobalt 4y ago
    As much as they don't want to admit it, Eero has been indeed Amazonified. Making weird, unfocused products and no longer supporting the community that existed around the products. I'm likely stepping up to Ubiquiti with the next Wi-Fi generation as my home networking needs have become more intense. (Who's hasn't?)
    - NotYourLawyer 4y ago
      I’m not thrilled with Ubiquiti’s push for cloud-managed everything either. I really just want mesh routers that I can administer locally.
- dagw 4y ago
  You could always buy a Roborock and send your data to the Chinese government instead...
  - TremendousJudge 4y ago
    Or a vacuum that doesn't connect to the internet? Mine works just fine
  - xeromal 4y ago
    You can install custom firmware on your roborock if you so choose.
    - deleted 4y ago
rwky 4y ago
My concern is more with Amazon making the repairability of roombas non existent. I own a non WiFi enabled roomba it's 7 years old and in that time apart from the brushes etc I've had to replace the bin and motor which cost a tenth of the cost of the whole unit. I love the fact you can buy just about any part that might fail and fix it yourself. I don't see that being the case if any of the major tech corps buy irobot :(
- lolinder 4y ago
  We bought a Roomba early this year and the factor that tipped the scales towards iRobot over others was that they still sell parts for the original Roomba, which suggested we could count on being able to repair ours well into the future. If Amazon changes that, I'll be ticked.
- cptcobalt 4y ago
  Absolutely. I love how much I can repair/maintain my Roomba. It's the most maintainable device in the house, almost. There's two dogs that shed, so we're rather rough on the Roomba and Braava. It's not like core components break, it's all wear items that are very easily serviceable. (I actually desire a more top of the line, more repairable & pet-friendly Roomba.) Amazon's hardware product ethos is the exact inverse. Replace it or trade it in when it's old or dies, and buy the new one. Their hardware, even some recent Kindles, doesn't scream premium quality.
mugivarra69 4y ago
i wish them well.
jgalt212 4y ago
Yes, this lame, but there is no lock-in with iRobot. ADT, however. https://newsroom.adt.com/financial/adt-announces-closing-450-million-investment-google https://newsroom.adt.com/financial/adt-announces-closing-450... Now google will know anytime I leave the house, or there's "FAULT, garage door!"
hammock 4y ago
Is it just me or can anyone else envision a near future where Amazon puts cameras on these Roombas and comes up with some consumer-friendly reason for doing so?
- lolinder 4y ago
  There are cameras in the latest Roombas already. They're actually quite helpful: they're used to detect if it's about to run into something it shouldn't, like power cables, cloths, or pet accidents. With just the pressure sensor some things won't trigger the "back away" response that really should have.
  - hammock 4y ago
    Well there you go then. That’s why Amazon would buy them. This talk of “maps of your house” and the low-res diagrams people post seem to be a red herring. Why doesn’t Roomba show you the photos it’s taking? Or does it?
    - lolinder 4y ago
      It does. If it runs into a new obstacle it's not sure about, it'll take a picture and show you to have you confirm whether it should avoid it in the future.
kyrra 4y ago
Amazon's problem here is that the head of the FTC (Lina Khan) does not like Amazon. See her 2017 Yale Law Journal article about wanting to break them up [0]. Many of the bureaucrats that Biden has hired into his administration do not like big business and will do whatever they can to stop them. [0] (PDF) https://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/e.710.Khan.805_zuvfyyeh.pdf https://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/e.710.Khan.805_zuvfyyeh.p...
- itslennysfault 4y ago
  Good. About time.
- LeifCarrotson 4y ago
  "Does not like Amazon" or "do not like big business" is an awfully unchariable way to frame it: She believes that "the current framework in antitrust —specifically its pegging competition to 'consumer welfare,' defined as short-term price effects— is unequipped to capture the architecture of market power in the modern economy." The FTC exists "to protect the public from deceptive or unfair business practices and from unfair methods of competition through law enforcement, advocacy, research, and education."[1] When Amazon and other big businesses harm the public through predatory pricing and other anticompetitive business practices, it's the FTC's obvious charter to do whatever they can to stop those businesses, whoever they are and whatever they're doing. [1] https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/mission https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/mission
- advisedwang 4y ago
  Their personal preferences don't matter that much. Even if these administrators are true believers in what they say and not just following the political winds, they're only going to be appointed if it's politically expedient for someone with that stance to be in that position. So the political determiner is not that Linda Khan doesn't like Amazon, but the politically favourable thing for the Democratic party is to have someone poking big tech * . This makes sense too - it courts people on the economic left who see big tech driving inequality in tech cities, it courts people concerned with privacy, it even courts some folks on the moderate right who see big tech as an enemy because of censorship. * And it is just big tech - you don't see the same rhetoric in other industries at the moment. For example Disney's ownership of Marvel, lucasfilm, Pixar, 20thC Fox, HBO, ABC, ESPN is approaching monopolistic but nobody is proposing blocking new acquisitions let alone breaking it up.
giantdude 4y ago
I am pretty sure the last Roomba I looked at had an upward-facing camera. Amazon can therefore ask the drone, I mean Roomba, to take a closer look at something. This could be tied in with AI: move to the window and detect curtains or window coverings; offer to sell if missing or unchanged in over a year, for instance. Is there something in your house you wouldn't want Amazon to take an upskirt shot of?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
JamesAdir 4y ago
Can you run latest Roomba models without network connection?
JohnFen 4y ago
Doesn't matter to me if the deal goes through or not. That iRobot is so willing to utterly betray their promises about the data they collect puts them on my list of companies to never do business with anyway. They cannot be trusted.
Gravityloss 4y ago
We bought a Roomba to replace our long dead Neato, since it's not a Chinese company... Didn't consider this to happen. Same with sports watches, using Polar because it is even somewhat privacy minded.
HereIGoAgain 4y ago
Good. I think the companies history with their tech is reason enough!

121 points by kristianpaul 4y ago

This story mostly regurgitates this Politico story: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/02/amazons-ftc-problem-keeps-growing-with-irobot-one-medical-probes-00054749 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/02/amazons-ftc-problem... The key paragraph: "Among the concerns the FTC is investigating is whether the data generated about a consumer’s home by iRobot’s Roomba vacuum will give it an unfair advantage over a wide variety of other retailers. That concern was voiced by multiple critics of the deal when it was first announced early this month. For example, Amazon could have an advantage with a consumer looking to buy a couch, by using detailed home maps generated by iRobot to suggested particular items." How detailed are the maps? I'm assuming they're using SLAM. [1] If so, the maps aren't that detailed, and I struggle to see how the maps will give them an unfair _retail_ advantage. I do get the need for the review, it's just this point that doesn't make sense to me. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_and_mapping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simultaneous_localization_and_...

samatman 4y ago
This is Amazon, the company which still offers to sell me more vacuum cleaners after I buy one. The company which will completely ignore keywords like "6A" in a desperate attempt to show you anything but what you're looking for. I'm not so worried! Added: this is also the company which sells a popular line of home-security cameras, some of which are meant to be installed indoors. Worrying about your vacuum snitching on you makes good sci-fi but maybe this product isn't where regulators should be focusing.
- liveoneggs 4y ago
  vacuums need friends!
  - rovr138 4y ago
    I have 4 and should probably buy that wet/dry shop vac I've been meaning to.
- josho 4y ago
  The reason after you make a purchase you still see offers for the same product is because you are still statistically more likely to purchase a vacuum than average. What if the vacuum doesn’t work well, it’s too heavy, the package doesn’t arrive? You’ll be turning around and buying another.
  - stepanhruda 4y ago
    Would mainly make sense if I returned the original order, otherwise there must be much more efficient use of the recommendation space.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - vntok 4y ago
      Well, no there isn't, and this company has the best data available on the planet to prove it.
      - CamperBob2 4y ago
        There should be a corollary to Hanlon's Razor. Something like, "Don't attribute to genius that which is adequately explained by laziness." Frankly, calling it Bezos's Razor would be very appropriate, because that's basically how the whole Amazon storefront works.
        vntok 4y ago
        Not quite. ML algorithms that continuously crunch billions of data points don't need to be called "genius", they're simply way more exhaustive in their search of optimums than "a vague idea from a regular person on the Internet that the best reaction to such situation is to do x" (with absolutely zero evidence to show for it of course).
  - coredog64 4y ago
    AIUI, recommendations can come from multiple providers. If very detailed recommendations that take into account the fact that you’ve already bought a vacuum timeout, then your recommendations come from a dumber provider that is based on recent searches.
- wongarsu 4y ago
  Just because they are inept now doesn't mean we should allow them something that could turn into an unfair advantage once they figure out how to actually do it.
- SicSemperUranus 4y ago
  So your argument is Amazon is too dumb to be a threat? Even if we assume this is true for the present, seems very short-sighted to me.
- josefresco 4y ago
  Yes but.... Amazon would be happy to sell your data to a company who knows how to abuse it!
marcinzm 4y ago
The issue probably isn't the final map but the raw data used to generate it. Which in the case of the newer iRobots is cameras. So the question is, how much is extensive continuously updated photos of everything in your house worth to Amazon?
- phkahler 4y ago
  For example, you search for decorative pillows and they filter based on those that match the style and color scheme of your living room. That would be an advantage over other retailers, and is just one simple example. OTOH implementation is everything and that wouldn't work well if you just ordered new furniture from somewhere else and are looking for pillows to match that.
  - treis 4y ago
    If they could actually provide filters like that people would give them pictures of their couch and living room.
  - edgyquant 4y ago
    Yeah but this sounds like an awesome service, actually
naillo 4y ago
Huh? As long as they have pictures, they can just run a classifier on it to figure out if you have couch etc. SLAM or not doesn't matter.
huhtenberg 4y ago
Even if the maps are basic, it would allow Amazon to jack up the prices for amazon.com queries from the same IP address if the place, say, is really big. iRobot app also encourages naming all areas in the house, so that too can be pretty telling. In fact, iRobot requires the access to the location services to initialize their iOS apps, so even without a map this would allow Amazon to link an IP address to the exact property. Creative abuse of this combo can go a very long way.
- helen___keller 4y ago
  Although I agree with the general concern > it would allow Amazon to jack up the prices for amazon.com queries from the same IP address if the place, say, is really big. Afaik this sort of airline-style price discrimination is not something amazon engages in ever. Maybe I’m misinformed
  - dylan604 4y ago
    I think rather than misinformed, you just left out a word in your claim. If you added the word "yet", then it would seem more appropriate to me. If the advertising world believes that targeted ads are the holy grail, then why wouldn't retailers believe targeted pricing to be also be the holy grail?
    - helen___keller 4y ago
      Targeted pricing is the holy grail, it’s just normally done through market segmentation and targeted advertisement. My personal belief is that if Amazon tried what you’re suggesting, they’d be shooting themselves in the foot (lose any remaining customer trust, regulators would be all over them, and competitors like Walmart would use it to gain market share overnight). In fact I was really hoping you’d share an article describing Amazon doing this so I have justification to cancel prime, ha!
      - dylan604 4y ago
        Honestly, I was just going all 1984 on the concept. However, if Amazon was really wanting to do this, they already know the avg income on everyone of their customers that have an Amazon credit card. That would be the ultimate in targeted pricing. Not just Amazon, any store branded card.
voqv 4y ago
Even occupancy grids can be used to detect if you some kind of furniture or what kind of windows you have. Also, iRobot added visual slam some time ago, those maps can give huge amount of detail even if they don't contain images, just feature based bag of words models.
reaperducer 4y ago
How detailed are the maps? Pretty detailed. I used to own one of the high-end Roombas that would show you a map of your house, and the wifi signal strength in all the nooks and crannies (really quite useful when you move to a new home). It doesn't show what kind of chair you have or what you have on the walls, or anything like that. But it's not hard at all to determine the size of the rooms, the layout, the placement of key pieces of furniture, and similar things. From the way a home is arranged and the amount of furniture, I can easily think of ways that the map could be used to infer information about a home. (Larger couch and entertainment center may indicate someone more interested in consuming media. Individual chairs around a smaller coffee table — perhaps they like entertaining.) The maps are far from accurate, since there are a number of problems with a Roomba building a full map: Closed doors; areas cordoned off by lighthouses; unless you put blue painter's tape over the sensors, Roomba thinks rugs with black in them are cliffs. But the maps don't have to be prefect to be very revealing. Especially since the higher-level Roombas have cameras on them. I don't know how detailed the images they capture are, but even if they are only vague monochrome blurs, that's enough to determine patterns of activity in the house. (Family regularly comes home at 5pm? Start advertising dinner food on partner web sites and apps.)
edgyquant 4y ago
Just because the maps aren’t detailed enough for this use today doesn’t mean Amazon won’t add the ability going forward
spoonjim 4y ago
If you're talking about SLAM you're overanalyzing the situation. Essentially, unfettered decades of rapacious corporate abuse has created a group of people who are essentially skeptical of anything that big business does. FTC Commissioner Lina Khan is one of those people and is now coming at Big Tech with a broadsword. Because Big Tech is so abusive, most of this makes sense, but much of it does not (eg. blocking a small VR app acquisition by Facebook)
MichaelCollins 4y ago
> How detailed are the maps? I'm assuming they're using SLAM. [1] If so, the maps aren't that detailed A few years ago I would have probably agreed. But modern machine learning can draw spooky inferences from seemingly sparse data, on a scale that makes it practical. As the roomba bumps around a room it will learn where obstacles are but not what those obstacles are. But the size and shape of the footprint of those obstacles probably contains enough information to make guesses at what those might be. Approximate identification of some obstacles as couches is probably possible, just from the size and shape, and likely the position of those obstacles in the room. That won't tell you how old the couch is, or whether it's worn out or not, but if the roomba can't find any probable couches in that person's house, advertising couches to that person may pay off. Also, did the roomba start finding a new room recently, but the other rooms have remained the same? That person may have build an addition to their house, or started furnishing their basement. Did all the rooms change but the roomba is still paired to the same smartphone? They may have moved into a new home. In either case, if the new room[s] don't have couch-shaped obstacles, advertise couches. And this is just with the bumpers. If Amazon adds a camera to roombas, the snooping potential is obvious.
- benjaminmaccini 4y ago
  Yep, pretty much exactly this. I've spent some time with SLAM, and in my experience, it's usually just a part of a larger ML pipeline. Not only can SLAM be paired with external data sources to generate labeled 3D objects, but inferences can be drawn directly from a generated point cloud without any ML involved. My best guess for this is that floor plans and furniture can be used to _fingerprint_ a user, rather than knowing that the user owns a couch so that The Company can recommend a particular CPG. Knowing who their target demographics are with greater accuracy certainly feeds back into their recommender systems, but not so directly, which makes me concerned for this investigation's success.
brianwawok 4y ago
My map is very detailed. Down to a few inches. It also has me label rooms, so it knows my Living Room vs Bedroom vs Bathroom.

danielfoster 4y ago

This article is misleading. It’s the only source I can find claiming that there is an FTC investigation. This sounds like part of the FTC’s antitrust review for the acquisition, which is standard procedure. The iRobot’s stock price also has not tanked, suggesting that this is indeed just a standard review rather than an investigation.

Overtonwindow 4y ago
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/02/amazons-ftc-problem-keeps-growing-with-irobot-one-medical-probes-00054749 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/02/amazons-ftc-problem...
adolph 4y ago
It’s still sommer. Maybe leaky Feds need more shorts?

Overtonwindow 4y ago

It's getting harder to stay out of the orbit of Facebook and Amazon. When Meta bought Oculus I gave mine away. I'm keeping the Roomba but.. I am wary of it now.

NotYourLawyer 4y ago
I feel the same way about eero.
- cptcobalt 4y ago
  As much as they don't want to admit it, Eero has been indeed Amazonified. Making weird, unfocused products and no longer supporting the community that existed around the products. I'm likely stepping up to Ubiquiti with the next Wi-Fi generation as my home networking needs have become more intense. (Who's hasn't?)
  - NotYourLawyer 4y ago
    I’m not thrilled with Ubiquiti’s push for cloud-managed everything either. I really just want mesh routers that I can administer locally.
dagw 4y ago
You could always buy a Roborock and send your data to the Chinese government instead...
- TremendousJudge 4y ago
  Or a vacuum that doesn't connect to the internet? Mine works just fine
- xeromal 4y ago
  You can install custom firmware on your roborock if you so choose.
  - deleted 4y ago

rwky 4y ago

My concern is more with Amazon making the repairability of roombas non existent. I own a non WiFi enabled roomba it's 7 years old and in that time apart from the brushes etc I've had to replace the bin and motor which cost a tenth of the cost of the whole unit. I love the fact you can buy just about any part that might fail and fix it yourself. I don't see that being the case if any of the major tech corps buy irobot :(

lolinder 4y ago
We bought a Roomba early this year and the factor that tipped the scales towards iRobot over others was that they still sell parts for the original Roomba, which suggested we could count on being able to repair ours well into the future. If Amazon changes that, I'll be ticked.
cptcobalt 4y ago
Absolutely. I love how much I can repair/maintain my Roomba. It's the most maintainable device in the house, almost. There's two dogs that shed, so we're rather rough on the Roomba and Braava. It's not like core components break, it's all wear items that are very easily serviceable. (I actually desire a more top of the line, more repairable & pet-friendly Roomba.) Amazon's hardware product ethos is the exact inverse. Replace it or trade it in when it's old or dies, and buy the new one. Their hardware, even some recent Kindles, doesn't scream premium quality.

mugivarra69 4y ago

i wish them well.

jgalt212 4y ago

Yes, this lame, but there is no lock-in with iRobot. ADT, however. https://newsroom.adt.com/financial/adt-announces-closing-450-million-investment-google https://newsroom.adt.com/financial/adt-announces-closing-450... Now google will know anytime I leave the house, or there's "FAULT, garage door!"

hammock 4y ago

Is it just me or can anyone else envision a near future where Amazon puts cameras on these Roombas and comes up with some consumer-friendly reason for doing so?

lolinder 4y ago
There are cameras in the latest Roombas already. They're actually quite helpful: they're used to detect if it's about to run into something it shouldn't, like power cables, cloths, or pet accidents. With just the pressure sensor some things won't trigger the "back away" response that really should have.
- hammock 4y ago
  Well there you go then. That’s why Amazon would buy them. This talk of “maps of your house” and the low-res diagrams people post seem to be a red herring. Why doesn’t Roomba show you the photos it’s taking? Or does it?
  - lolinder 4y ago
    It does. If it runs into a new obstacle it's not sure about, it'll take a picture and show you to have you confirm whether it should avoid it in the future.

kyrra 4y ago

Amazon's problem here is that the head of the FTC (Lina Khan) does not like Amazon. See her 2017 Yale Law Journal article about wanting to break them up [0]. Many of the bureaucrats that Biden has hired into his administration do not like big business and will do whatever they can to stop them. [0] (PDF) https://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/e.710.Khan.805_zuvfyyeh.pdf https://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/e.710.Khan.805_zuvfyyeh.p...

itslennysfault 4y ago
Good. About time.
LeifCarrotson 4y ago
"Does not like Amazon" or "do not like big business" is an awfully unchariable way to frame it: She believes that "the current framework in antitrust —specifically its pegging competition to 'consumer welfare,' defined as short-term price effects— is unequipped to capture the architecture of market power in the modern economy." The FTC exists "to protect the public from deceptive or unfair business practices and from unfair methods of competition through law enforcement, advocacy, research, and education."[1] When Amazon and other big businesses harm the public through predatory pricing and other anticompetitive business practices, it's the FTC's obvious charter to do whatever they can to stop those businesses, whoever they are and whatever they're doing. [1] https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/mission https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/mission
advisedwang 4y ago
Their personal preferences don't matter that much. Even if these administrators are true believers in what they say and not just following the political winds, they're only going to be appointed if it's politically expedient for someone with that stance to be in that position. So the political determiner is not that Linda Khan doesn't like Amazon, but the politically favourable thing for the Democratic party is to have someone poking big tech * . This makes sense too - it courts people on the economic left who see big tech driving inequality in tech cities, it courts people concerned with privacy, it even courts some folks on the moderate right who see big tech as an enemy because of censorship. * And it is just big tech - you don't see the same rhetoric in other industries at the moment. For example Disney's ownership of Marvel, lucasfilm, Pixar, 20thC Fox, HBO, ABC, ESPN is approaching monopolistic but nobody is proposing blocking new acquisitions let alone breaking it up.

giantdude 4y ago

I am pretty sure the last Roomba I looked at had an upward-facing camera. Amazon can therefore ask the drone, I mean Roomba, to take a closer look at something. This could be tied in with AI: move to the window and detect curtains or window coverings; offer to sell if missing or unchanged in over a year, for instance. Is there something in your house you wouldn't want Amazon to take an upskirt shot of?

deleted 4y ago
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JamesAdir 4y ago

Can you run latest Roomba models without network connection?

JohnFen 4y ago

Doesn't matter to me if the deal goes through or not. That iRobot is so willing to utterly betray their promises about the data they collect puts them on my list of companies to never do business with anyway. They cannot be trusted.

Gravityloss 4y ago

We bought a Roomba to replace our long dead Neato, since it's not a Chinese company... Didn't consider this to happen. Same with sports watches, using Polar because it is even somewhat privacy minded.

HereIGoAgain 4y ago

Good. I think the companies history with their tech is reason enough!