The European Union plans to investigate Amazon.com Inc.’s AMZN, +1.11% $1.7 billion acquisition of iRobot Corp. IRBT, +1.06%, maker of the autonomous vacuum cleaner Roomba, the Financial Times reported Wednesday. European regulators have contacted the e-commerce giant, with questions about Roomba’s ability to take pictures as it moves about a home, according to the report. A potential probe follows the Federal Trade Commission’s scrutiny of the same deal, and its impact on Amazon’s market power. An Amazon spokesperson made the following statement to MarketWatch: “We understand that data and privacy are top of mind for customers, which is why they are core to our product design. We use customer data to improve customers’ experiences with our products and services and to support our partners; we don’t sell customer data to third parties or use customer data for purposes that customers haven’t consented to. In this case, the deal is not closed, so we don’t have anything to share yet.”
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