FTC Further Examines Competition In Cloud Computing

The Federal Trade Commission is seeking to learn more about tech giants’ hold on cloud computing services and whether there might be competition and security concerns for the agency to address.

The FTC issued a request for information in March on the business practices of cloud computing providers, kicking off the agency’s examination of how cloud computing works and who controls the market. On Thursday, the agency hosted a webcast featuring a panel discussion assessing competition concerns and the role of leading cloud service providers including Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.

FTC Chair Lina Khan noted during Thursday’s discussion how the largest cloud computing providers are big tech companies, which she said have benefited from the network effects that a large, existing customer base provides them.

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“We want to make sure at the FTC that we’re fully understanding what are the factors that are leading the market to be so concentrated in the hands of a few companies, and also what are some of the downstream risks that might stem from that, that need to be on our radar, both on the competition side as well as on the data protection and security side,” Khan said during the FTC webcast.

Some cloud vendors have been criticized for bundling other products with their business cloud services, such as Microsoft’s Azure cloud which is tied to Office 365.