“The FTC launched an antitrust investigation against Microsoft: what is known The US Federal Trade Commission has launched an antitrust investigation into Microsoft’s software licensing and cloud computing activities. The investigation covers the company’s potential market abuse and cybersecurity and AI practices.”, — write on: unn.ua
Details
Reuters reports on whistleblowers who have confirmed that the FTC is investigating a case and allegations against the software giant for potentially abusing its position in the productivity software market by imposing punitive licensing terms to prevent customers from moving their data from regional Azure service to other competing platforms .
The investigation was approved by FTC Chairman Linoy Khan before her expected resignation in January.
The whistleblower also said the FTC is also looking into practices related to cybersecurity and artificial intelligence products.
Competitors have criticized Microsoft’s practices, which they say keep customers locked into its Azure cloud platform. The FTC received such complaints last year when it was examining the cloud computing market.
NetChoice, a lobbying group that represents Internet companies including Amazon and Google that compete with Microsoft in cloud computing, has criticized Microsoft’s licensing policies and the integration of artificial intelligence tools into Office and Outlook.
Given that Microsoft is the world’s largest software company, dominating the productivity and operating systems industries, the scale and implications of its licensing decisions are extraordinary.
Microsoft declined to comment.
We will remind
Microsoft began disconnecting Russian companies from cloud services, including Microsoft 365 and Teams. The new sanctions affected all legal entities registered in Russia, except for multinational companies.