Google files EU antitrust complaint against Microsoft

Google filed a complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission on Wednesday. In it, Google accused Microsoft of making it prohibitively expensive for cloud customers to move their work from Azure to other providers, like Google Cloud.

Google claims Microsoft’s cloud licensing terms restrict European customers from switching to competing cloud platforms despite “no technical barriers to doing so.” In a blog post explaining its complaint, Google wrote that Microsoft’s practices have “significantly harmed European companies and governments,” costing European businesses €1 billion ($1.1 billion) annually, wasting taxpayer money and stifling competition.

Amazon’s AWS leads Europe’s cloud market. Microsoft’s Azure is second, followed by Google in third. Oracle, Salesforce and IBM rounded out the top six in Q2 2024.

On Wednesday, a European Commission spokesperson confirmed to Engadget that the EU governing body received Google’s ...