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EU Weighs Extending Big Tech Crackdown to Major Cloud Providers

By  |  November 17, 2025

European Union regulators are considering whether the world’s largest cloud-computing companies — Amazon Web Services, Microsoft’s Azure, and Google Cloud — should fall under the bloc’s powerful Digital Markets Act, according to Bloomberg. The potential expansion of oversight would mark the first time the EU applies its sweeping tech rules to infrastructure providers that underpin a large share of the global digital economy.

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    Per Bloomberg, the European Commission is preparing a formal market investigation to determine whether the three dominant cloud firms exert enough influence to warrant new obligations. Officials are reportedly concerned that recent high-profile outages exposed the risks of heavy dependence on a small group of global platforms. Several incidents over the past year brought down services used by businesses, governments, and consumers worldwide, renewing scrutiny of market concentration in the cloud sector.

    Regulators are expected to examine whether the cloud giants should face requirements such as ensuring greater interoperability with other software, improving customers’ ability to move data between services, and limiting practices that tie or bundle different products. According to Bloomberg, the probe aims to assess the companies’ power even though the DMA typically relies on user numbers — a metric difficult to apply to enterprise-focused cloud providers.

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    The Commission and Microsoft declined to comment, while AWS and Google did not immediately respond to inquiries.

    The Digital Markets Act, which took effect in 2023, targets the most influential digital platforms with strict rules meant to curb anti-competitive behavior. So far, enforcement has focused on consumer-facing tech giants, leading to major penalties for companies such as Apple and Meta. Those fines have reached €500 million and €200 million respectively.

    Recent disruptions have intensified regulatory interest. An Amazon Web Services outage last month lasted roughly 15 hours and affected operations at hundreds of companies, including Apple, McDonald’s, and Epic Games. Microsoft’s Azure suffered problems in October that temporarily halted Alaska Airlines check-ins and paused voting in the Scottish Parliament. Google Cloud also experienced a global failure in June that brought down services like Spotify and Discord.

    Source: Bloomberg