26 nonprofits and advocacy groups have called on the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to block Amazon’s $1.7 billion purchase of the iRobot robot vacuum.

In an open letter, Fight for the Future, Public Citizen, Athena and others called the iRobot acquisition anticompetitive. In their view, the deal could hurt the consumer technology market as a whole.

“Amazon is trying to unreasonably expand its bargaining power by eliminating a competitor through acquisition rather than organic growth. “The company also strives to minimize fair competition by using consumer data that is not available to other market participants.”

Lawyers fear Amazon could misuse detailed images of customers’ homes collected by iRobot devices. According to them, the acquisition will allow the tech giant to access “extremely confidential facts” about the most private places that cannot be collected by other means.

As an example, the groups cited Amazon’s acquisition of smart home device maker Ring in 2018. In three years, activists say the successful and growing startup has become “the king of smart doorbells” as the tech giant promotes its products at below market prices through its “ubiquitous” platform.

Activists warned the regulator that iRobot’s Roomba vacuums could follow the same path. If Amazon pushes product dominance through anti-competitive pricing and removes data from devices, they say, “it will further consolidate its monopoly power in the digital economy.”

Earlier, the FTC began reviewing Amazon’s deal with iRobot to see if it violated US antitrust laws.

Recall that the European Parliament passed bills regulating companies in the areas of privacy, algorithms and competition in July.

In September, the White House laid out six principles for tech giants to reform their platforms to contain their influence.