Google drops EU antitrust complaint against Microsoft amid cloud probe – News

Google LLC has dropped an antitrust complaint that it filed in the European Union last year over Microsoft Corp.’s business practices.

The search giant announced the move today. The development comes a few days after the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, launched an antitrust probe into Microsoft. The investigation will scrutinize the company’s conduct in the public cloud market, which was also the focus of Google’s antitrust complaint.

Microsoft sells a version of Windows called Windows Server that is optimized for public cloud environments. Many enterprises use it to run Microsoft applications such as SQL Server. In 2019, the tech giant rolled out a major update to its terms of service for Windows Server installations that run on competing clouds.

Google’s antitrust complaint argued that the 2019 licensing change was anticompetitive. According to the company, the update made it more expensive to run Windows Server on Google Cloud than on Microsoft’s own Azure cloud platform. The search giant cited research that found the revised terms of service cost EU businesses more than €1 billion.

Google also flagged other issues to EU regulators. According to the search giant’s complaint, Microsoft limited customers’ access to Windows Server patches on competing clouds and created interoperability obstacles.

“Today, we are withdrawing it in light of the recent announcement that the EC will ​assess problematic practices affecting the cloud sector under a separate process,”‌ stated Giorgia Abeltino, the head of government affairs and public policy for Google Cloud Europe. “We continue to work with policymakers, customers, and regulators across the EU, the U.K., and elsewhere to advocate for choice and openness in the cloud ⁠market.”

The Microsoft probe that EU officials opened last week will seek to determine whether Azure qualifies as a core platform service under the bloc’s DMA law. The DMA, or Digital Markets Act, is a piece of antitrust legislation that went into effect in 2022. Products that are designated as a core platform service are subject to stricter regulatory requirements.

One DMA clause specifies that core platform services must provide a simple way for users to move their data to other platforms. If regulators apply that requirement to Azure, Microsoft may have to make technical changes to its data export tools. Many of the other requirements set forth in the DMA focus on consumer products such as mobile operating systems, which means they likely wouldn’t affect Azure.

The Microsoft probe is one of three investigations into the public cloud market that the EU announced last week. Officials will also seek to determine whether Amazon Web Services qualifies as a core platform service. Additionally, the European Commission will study whether the DMA should be modified to better address antitrust concerns in the cloud market.

Image: Google