MSNBC reported:

On Friday, Politico reported that the Federal Trade Commission is investigating Amazon's agreement to acquire two companies that would help the tech giant become an even bigger hoarder of people's personal information.

Yes, Amazon is making a play to own even more private data. These acquisitions would add to an already huge arsenal of surveillance devices in Amazon's portfolio. The company currently owns Alexa, a "virtual assistant" for your home that already gobbles up troves of personal data whenever people speak into enabled devices. And Amazon also owns Ring, the company that sells doorbell cameras that can record a disturbing amount of audio and video, a fact evident by the historic amount of data that Ring has turned over to the federal government.

It'll be important to keep an eye on the FTC's investigation as it unfolds, as well as keep a close watch on other large companies making plays for our personal data. Books like Jaron Lanier's "Who Owns the Future?" have predicted our current era, in which the companies that possess the most user information tend to be the most powerful.

We know personal data can be used maliciously, and Amazon is not to be taken at its word that it has no plans to do so. And we certainly can't assume Amazon won't pass off personal data to third parties that do plan to use it maliciously.