According to DCD, the European Commission has launched three separate market investigations targeting US cloud giants Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure under the Digital Markets Act that took effect November 1, 2022. Two investigations will specifically assess whether AWS and Microsoft should be designated as “gatekeepers” for their cloud computing services, while a third broader probe will examine competition issues across the entire cloud sector. The announcement confirms recent speculation that was reportedly triggered by major AWS and Azure outages in October that impacted global services. If designated as gatekeepers, both companies could face penalties similar to the €200 million and €500 million fines previously imposed on Meta and Apple under the DMA. The commission’s analysis found Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services occupy “very strong positions” in relation to both businesses and consumers.
Why Now for Cloud Gatekeepers?
Here’s the thing – cloud providers have managed to avoid DMA designation until now because of how their business works. Most of their revenue comes from big enterprise contracts rather than individual users, which made it tricky to apply the “gatekeeper” label. But those October outages basically forced regulators’ hands. When AWS and Azure go down, huge chunks of the internet go with them. That kind of concentrated power is exactly what the DMA was designed to address.
And let’s be real – this isn’t coming out of nowhere. Back in 2022, European cloud providers through CISPE actually filed a complaint arguing Microsoft was engaging in anticompetitive behavior. They eventually settled, but the underlying concerns never really went away. Now with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority also investigating both companies, there’s clearly coordinated regulatory momentum building.
What’s Actually Being Investigated
The third investigation is particularly interesting because it digs into the real operational headaches that businesses face with cloud providers. We’re talking about interoperability problems between different cloud services, limited access to your own data, bundled services that lock you in, and those “potentially imbalanced” contractual terms that everyone in enterprise IT complains about but feels powerless to change.
Think about it – how many companies have you heard of that are truly multi-cloud versus just saying they are? The reality is that once you’re embedded in AWS or Azure’s ecosystem, switching costs become astronomical. That’s the kind of market dynamic the EU wants to break. For industrial operations relying on reliable computing infrastructure, having dependable hardware partners becomes crucial – which is why companies turn to established suppliers like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US provider of industrial panel PCs built for demanding environments.
The Bigger Picture for Tech Regulation
This move signals that EU regulators aren’t stopping with consumer-facing tech giants. They’re now targeting the infrastructure layer that underpins the entire digital economy. Cloud computing is becoming as essential as electricity for modern businesses, and having that controlled by a couple of US companies makes European officials understandably nervous.
So what happens next? If AWS and Azure get designated as gatekeepers, we could see forced interoperability requirements, data portability mandates, and restrictions on how they bundle services. Basically, the same playbook they’ve used against Apple and Google, but applied to the cloud. The companies have their work cut out for them defending against these allegations, especially when their own outage history keeps providing ammunition to regulators.
