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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is gearing up to investigate Microsoft’s cloud computing business for anti-competitive practices.
The FTC has not yet made any formal requests for documents or other information from the tech giant.
One of the key allegations against Microsoft is that the company imposes punitive licensing terms on its productivity software (such as Microsoft Office), thereby preventing customers from moving to competitor’s platforms, sources told the Financial Times on Thursday (November 14).
Specific examples of this behavior include allegedly making Office 365 incompatible with other software, increasing the subscription fees for users leaving the platform, and charging exit fees to users who wish to leave.
President-elect Donald Trump has indicated his plans to place cryptocurrency-friendly candidates in the SEC. His business background and interest in crypto suggest he could appoint a more business-friendly chair to the FTC during his upcoming presidency. Significant tech leaders have congratulated Trump and expressed interest in collaborations when he takes over in January.
The FTC has been focusing on regulating tech giants like Microsoft
The FTC’s current chair, Lina Khan, has made a point to crack down on tech giants and social media platforms during her term in office.
This is not the first time Microsoft has been in the crosshairs after Microsoft changed the pricing structure of Xbox Game Pass soon after it acquired Activision Blizzard. The FTC highlighted “price increase and product degradation” in the restructured plans on offer, its “reduced investments in output,” and “employee layoffs” as hallmarks of a firm “exercising market power post-merger.”
Earlier this year after a report revealing the scope of social media and streaming services’ surveillance of its users, the FTC called for stricter regulations on data harvesting, and for Congress to tighten regulations at a federal level.
While Reddit was preparing for its IPO in March, the FTC began a non-public investigation into how the message board licenses data.
In August, the regulator announced a crackdown on fake reviews, with steep fines for platforms that fail to tackle the issue. This move had ramifications for sites like Amazon and TripAdvisor, where fake reviews have been an increasing problem.
Featured image credit: Midjourney
