Roughly two weeks apart, on July 21, 2022 and August 5, 2022, respectively, Amazon made headlines for agreeing to acquire One Medical, “a human-centered and technology-powered primary care organization,” for approximately $3.9 billion and iRobot, a global consumer robot company, known for its creation of the Roomba vacuum, for approximately $1.7 billion. These proposed acquisitions have drawn the scrutiny of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which following President Biden’s 2021 Executive Order on antitrust and competition, has taken a more aggressive stance toward acquisitions by large technology companies in an effort to, in FTC Chair Lina Khan’s words, “prevent incumbents from unlawfully capturing control over emerging markets.”
Beyond antitrust issues, Amazon’s recent acquisition decisions bring the discussion of the collection of consumer information and its secondary uses, specifically location and health data (which we have previously written about), to the forefront, yet again.
