Google accuses Microsoft of unfair practices in Azure cloud unit

Google, which has spent years defending itself towards claims of monopolistic habits throughout the U.S. and Europe, goes public with its personal grievance of anti-competitive practices by longtime rival Microsoft.

In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday, Google alleged Microsoft makes use of unfair licensing phrases to “lock in clients” to exert management over the cloud-computing market.

The letter was despatched in response to a broad FTC request for touch upon potential anti-competitive acts within the cloud trade. A spokesperson for the FTC declined to remark additional.

Google singled out Microsoft within the grievance, arguing that by way of its dominant Windows Server and Microsoft Offices merchandise, the corporate could make it tough for its huge roster of shoppers to make use of something however its Azure cloud infrastructure providing. Google described Microsoft’s licensing restrictions as a “complex web” that stops companies from diversifying their enterprise software program distributors.

Google additionally mentioned such management represents a big nationwide safety and cybersecurity danger. It highlighted successive cyberattacks involving Microsoft merchandise, together with the SolarWinds breach. Microsoft and Google each have energetic cybersecurity practices that reply to and analysis cyber threats.

Google is not any stranger to antitrust issues. In January, the U.S. Department of Justice filed its second antitrust lawsuit towards Google in simply over two years, focusing on its promoting business.

The division’s earlier lawsuit, filed in October 2020 underneath the Trump administration, accused Google of utilizing monopoly energy to chop off competitors for web search by way of exclusionary agreements. That case is anticipated to go to trial in September.

Google additionally faces three different antitrust lawsuits from massive teams of state attorneys normal, together with one targeted on its promoting business led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

In its FTC letter, Google additionally alleged Oracle’s practices are dangerous to prospects.

“With overly complex agreements that seek to lock in clients to their ecosystems,” Google mentioned, corporations equivalent to Microsoft and Oracle “are not only forcing customers toward a monolithic cloud model but also limiting choice, increasing costs for customers, and disrupting growing and thriving digital ecosystems in the U.S. and around the world.”

In the Nineteen Nineties, Microsoft was concerned in some of the infamous antitrust circumstances in U.S. historical past. The firm was accused of utilizing its dominance in desktop software program to push customers to its web browser, killing off competitors from upstarts equivalent to Netscape. The authorities received the case, finally forcing Microsoft to permit PC makers to make use of different corporations’ browsers.

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