Amazon Web Services and Microsoft’s Azure are under investigation by the European Union to determine whether the world’s two largest cloud computing platforms should be subject to rules aimed at limiting the market power of big technology companies.
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The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said on Tuesday that both “occupy very powerful positions” and that it would assess “whether they act as important gateways between businesses and consumers” within the scope of the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
It also said it would investigate whether the set of rules aimed at containing anti-competitive behavior is “effective in addressing practices that limit competitiveness or are unfair in the cloud sector.” The European Commission said on Monday it was considering the possibility of cracking down on big tech power in cloud services.
The EU’s move to focus on cloud platforms comes after several major outages in the sector that have caused chaos in services around the world, highlighting the risks of relying on a few players.
A Microsoft spokesman said the company was willing to contribute to the commission’s market investigations, and a spokesman for Amazon’s AWS unit said he was confident regulators would conclude that the cloud market offers choice and innovation.
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Last month, Amazon’s reputation as a reliable cloud service provider was damaged when a roughly 15-hour outage affected the operations of hundreds of companies, including Apple, McDonald’s and Epic Games.
Microsoft Azure also encountered issues in October that prevented passengers from checking in on Alaska Airlines flights and paralyzed a vote in the Scottish Parliament.
The new investigation into the power of AWS and Azure should be completed within 12 months, according to the regulator. The Commission is expected to make a final decision on how to regulate the cloud sector under the DMA within 18 months.
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