A team of lawmakers has lobbied the US Federal Trade Commission to block Amazon’s proposed A$2.6 billion purchase of iRobot, the parent company of the revolutionary Roomba autonomous vacuum.

A group of Democratic lawmakers lead by Senator Elizabeth Warren argued that the deal would allow Amazon to effectively purchase one of its major competitors in the smart home market.

“iRobot is a powerful market incumbent, and Amazon, given its vast resources, history of producing smart vacuums… and powerful platform, is an extraordinarily significant ‘potential entrant’ into the market,” the lawmakers wrote on Thursday.

“Amazon’s ability to acquire iRobot would cause substantially less competition.”

The ACCC is currently investigating the deal in Australia, while Digital Rights Watch, a not-for-profit advocacy group, has also lobbied for the deal to be blocked, saying the acquisition isn’t about selling robot vacuums.

“This is so Amazon can gather even more information about our lives and our homes,” said James Clark, executive director of Digital Rights Watch.

“At its core, Amazon is a surveillance company,” he wrote in a report. “Amazon protects its market power and profitability by using its scale to build detailed profiles on millions of people and uses that to predict market trends and manipulate user behaviour.

“The personal information about Australians and their homes shouldn’t be treated as an asset to be traded and acquired. This is sensitive and private information. There needs to be real limits on how it can be used, and especially on how it can be shared.”