Germany probes Microsoft’s market power

[Unchained]

https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/28/microsoft-german-fco/

Microsoft is the latest tech giant to be caught in the cross-hairs of Germany’s antitrust authority.

The Federal Cartel Office (FCO), aka the Bundeskartellamt, has announced it’s opened a proceeding to determine whether special abuse measures can be applied to the company’s business in Germany — citing Microsoft’s extensive digital ecosystem which it noted cuts across multiple markets, including operating systems and office software; cloud computing; gaming; professional networking; Internet search; and — latterly — novel AI applications.

Commenting in a statement, Andreas Mundt, president of the FCO, said:

With Windows and its Office products Microsoft has had a long-standing and very strong position with regard to operating systems and office software. Based on this, the company has continuously expanded its product range both for business customers and consumers. More recently, we have seen a strong increase in the importance of the cloud services Azure and OneDrive, which are often linked to other Microsoft applications, and the resounding success of Teams, a software for video conferences and collaborative working. In addition, Microsoft is also active in other areas, including gaming with its Xbox, career networks with its service LinkedIn or internet searching with its search engine Bing. Most recently, the company has attracted attention with the integration of AI applications. In light of this, there are good reasons to examine whether Microsoft is of paramount significance for competition across markets. Such a finding would allow us to take action at an early stage and prohibit possible anti-competitive practices.

A report in Bloomberg earlier this week suggested Microsoft has been seeking to apply data restrictions on users of its search index to prevent them developing their own AI chatbots — apparently to try to ensure OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology, which the tech giant is a major investor in, retains the lead in the generative AI race (and therefore that Microsoft also remains ahead of the pack, with even other giants like Google scrambling to keep up).


While Microsoft was regularly in the cross hairs of antitrust regulators back in the nineties up to the early noughties, it has enjoyed something of a lighter touch on the competition scrutiny front over the last decade or so — during which time it’s steadily expanded and deepened its business across multiple digital markets, including healthcare, digital advertising and gaming, to name a few.

 

[Bryank75]

Hopefully they actually follow through and do something.

For the most hated company in the world, they sure are getting away with a lot.

 

[Old Gamer]

Merkel has shown some regret for following the US a few years ago... maybe an actual change will happen in EU.

 

[Yobo]

Gee the EU is gonna look pretty dumb approving the ABK deal if this becomes anything. Wonder if this will have an influence

 

[Old Gamer]

Gee the EU is gonna look pretty dumb approving the ABK deal if this becomes anything. Wonder if this will have an influence

This is a separate anti-trust investigation. Even though the threat is coming from the same company, and this should in fact impact the ABK case decision, it won't.

 

[Yobo]

This is a separate anti-trust investigation. Even though the threat is coming from the same company, and this should in fact impact the ABK case decision, it won't.

I'm aware, just saying EU will look pretty dumb if they pass the ABK deal and then its biggest market presses an anti trust case against Microsoft which encompasses gaming

It looks like Germany has a far better grasp on Microsoft's habits across a range of markets it is taking hold of than the regulators so far

 

[Zeroing]

Oh man, probing... sounds painful.