The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is moving ahead with an antitrust investigation into Microsoft, initially launched during the Biden administration. Despite potential shifts in policy under a new administration, the probe is continuing, with FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson leading the investigation.
Last year, the FTC issued a civil investigative demand to Microsoft, requiring the company to provide data regarding its AI operations, including the costs of training AI models and acquiring data, according to Bloomberg.
The FTC’s scrutiny centers on Microsoft’s decision to decrease funding for its own AI projects following its agreement with OpenAI. Microsoft first invested $1 billion (A$1.58 billion) in OpenAI in 2019. This move was intended to help the company compete with rivals like Google, which were already making advancements in AI development.
In 2023, a month after investing an additional $10 billion (A$15.81 billion) in OpenAI, Microsoft introduced several products powered by OpenAI technology while simultaneously scaling back its own internal AI development efforts.
The FTC is also seeking information about upcoming licensing rule changes that Microsoft has announced will take effect later this year. Furthermore, the agency is inquiring about Microsoft’s data center capacity constraints to understand the costs associated with cloud computing services. Other questions reportedly concern the licensing of Microsoft’s software products.
Last year, Microsoft confirmed it would sell its Office and Teams products separately worldwide. “We are working cooperatively with the agency,” stated Alex Haurek, a Microsoft spokesman.
Besides Microsoft, the FTC is also examining other major tech companies, including Meta and Amazon. Beyond the United States, regulators in the European Union are also looking into Microsoft’s practices. France’s antitrust authority is investigating Microsoft over concerns that it is degrading search results for competitors who pay to use Bing. Officials are considering whether Microsoft has abused its market position in the niche of search-engine syndication by having the Bing search engine deliver lower-quality search results.
