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A12 BUSINESS
Wednesday 24 august 2022

As Amazon grows, so does its eye on

consumers

By HALELUYA HADERO
AP Business Writer
From what you buy on-
line, to how you remember
tasks, to when you monitor
your doorstep, Amazon is
seemingly everywhere.
And it appears the com-
pany doesn’t want to halt
its reach anytime soon. In
recent weeks, Amazon has
said it will spend billions of
dollars in two gigantic ac-
quisitions that, if approved,
will broaden its ever grow-
ing presence in the lives of In this Friday, June 28, 2019, image made from video, a Ring
consumers. doorbell camera is shown at a home in Coon Rapids, Minn.
This time, the company is Associated Press
targeting two areas: health speaker market, account- pany aims to grow. In the
care, through its $3.9 bil- ing for roughly 70% of sales, past few years, the com-
lion buyout of the primary according to estimates by pany has purchased the
care company One Medi- Consumer Intelligence Re- Wi-Fi startup Eero and part-
cal, and the “smart home,” search Partners. nered with the construc-
where it plans to expand its Ring, which Amazon pur- tion company Lennar to of-
already mighty presence chased in 2018 for $1 billion, fer tech-powered houses.
through a $1.7 billion merg- monitors doorsteps and With iRobot, it would gain
er with iRobot, the maker of helps police track down one more building block for
the popular robotic Room- crime even when users the ultimate smart home —
ba vacuum. might not be aware. And and, of course, more data.
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a at select Amazon stores Customers can opt out
company known for its vast and Whole Foods, the of having iRobot devic-
collection of consumer in- company is testing a palm- es store a layout of their
formation, both mergers scanning technology that homes, according to the
have heightened enduring allows customers to pay for vacuum maker. But data
privacy concerns about items by storing biometric privacy advocates worry
how Amazon gathers data data in the cloud, spark- the merger is another way
and what it does with it. The ing concerns about risks Amazon could suck up in-
latest line of Roombas, for of a data breach, which formation to integrate into
example, employ sensors Amazon has attempted to its other devices or use to
that map and remember a assuage. “We treat your target consumers with ads.
home’s floor plan. palm signature just like oth- In a statement, Amazon
“It’s acquiring this vast set of er highly sensitive personal spokesperson Lisa Levan-
data that Roomba collects data and keep it safe using dowski denied that’s what
about people’s homes,” best-in-class technical and the company wants to do.
said Ron Knox, an Amazon physical security controls,” “We do not use home
critic who works for the an- the company said on a maps for targeted advertis-
ti-monopoly group Institute website that provides infor- ing and have no plans to
for Local Self-Reliance. “Its mation about the technol- do so,” Levandowski said.
obvious intent, through all ogy. Even consumers who Whether that will relieve
the other products that it actively avoid Amazon are concerns is another mat-
sells to consumers, is to be still likely to have little say ter, especially in light of
in your home. (And) along about how their employ- research about Amazon’s
with the privacy issues ers power their computer other devices. Earlier this

come the antitrust issues, networks, which Amazon year, a group of university
because it’s buying market along with Google has researchers released a re-
share.” Amazon’s reach long dominated through its port that found voice data
goes well beyond that. cloud-computing service from Amazon’s Echo devic-
Some estimates show the AWS. “It’s hard to think of es are used to target ads
retail giant controls rough- another organization that to consumers something
ly 38% of the U.S. e-com- has as many touch points the company had denied
merce market, allowing it as Amazon does to an in- in the past. Umar Iqbal, a
to gather granular data dividual,” said Ian Greenb- postdoc at the University
about the shopping prefer- latt, who heads up tech re- of Washington who led the
ences of millions of Ameri- search at the consumer re- research, said he and his
cans and more world- search and data analytics colleagues found Echo
wide. Meanwhile, its Echo firm J.D. Power. “It’s almost devices running third-party
devices, which house the overwhelming, and it’s Skills, which are like apps for
voice assistant Alexa, have hard to put a finger on it.” Alexa, that communicate
dominated the U.S. smart And Amazon like any com- with advertisers.q