The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is moving forward with an investigation into Amazon Web Services (AWS), the Amazon cloud computing business, over competition issues, Bloomberg reported.
FTC officials have been getting information from various companies about the issues with AWS, according to the report. The probe began under the President Donald Trump administration, which also began investigating other tech giants, including Meta’s Facebook, Alphabet’s Google and Apple.
Big Tech has been under fire from various sources around the world, as global leaders reckon with how much power these types of companies should have and how antitrust concerns should be dealt with.
The companies have also been fighting back, as evidenced by Facebook’s push to get the FTC lawsuit dismissed.
Read more: Facebook Pushes for FTC Lawsuit Dismissal
Facebook has said the FTC’s vote to file an amended complaint last October wasn’t valid because of Chairwoman Lina Khan’s participation. The company said Khan’s presence on a House Judiciary committee on antitrust meant the complaint couldn’t be valid because she had her mind made up already.
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Facebook said that Khan’s participation “creates the appearance” that she has “prejudged the facts” and has a bias.
In a separate case, Amazon is challenging a massive fine leveled at it by the European Union after regulators ordered it to pay a privacy fine in July. Amazon said it received no guidance on how to pay the fine, so it shouldn’t have to pay a $844,000 daily fine that comes with it.
See more: Amazon Challenges EU Over $844M Fine
The fine came from a reported violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the third quarter of the year. GDPR fines came out to $1.14 billion in the third quarter — 20 times what they had been in the combined first and second quarter fines and three times higher than the total fines levied in all of 2020.
