antitrust regulators

About this tag
Antitrust regulators are increasingly scrutinizing Microsoft's business practices across multiple jurisdictions. Recent threads on WindowsForum cover Japan's Fair Trade Commission investigating whether Microsoft's licensing and pricing for Azure unfairly steers customers away from rival cloud platforms like AWS and Google Cloud. In Brazil, antitrust authorities are probing allegations that Microsoft uses OEM agreements to make Edge the default browser on Windows, potentially limiting consumer choice. These cases reflect a broader global trend of regulators examining how Microsoft leverages its dominant position in operating systems and cloud services to restrict competition. The discussions highlight ongoing tensions between Microsoft's product integration strategies and fair competition requirements in enterprise IT and consumer markets.
  1. Japan Probes Microsoft Azure Licensing as Kenya Starlink Expansion Expands Azure Reach

    Japan’s competition watchdog executed a high‑profile on‑site inspection of Microsoft’s Tokyo offices in late February, opening a formal probe into whether the software giant’s licensing, pricing and technical practices steered customers toward Microsoft Azure and made it harder or more expensive...
  2. Japan JFTC Probes Microsoft Licensing Ties to Azure in Dawn Raid

    Japan’s competition enforcers have executed an on-site inspection of Microsoft’s Japanese offices after local media and international reporting said the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) is investigating whether Microsoft improperly limited customers’ ability to run Microsoft software on rival...
  3. Brazil Antitrust Probe into Edge Default on Windows by Microsoft

    Brazil’s antitrust authority has opened a focused inquiry into whether Microsoft used commercial leverage over PC makers to ensure Microsoft Edge ships as the exclusive, out‑of‑the‑box browser on Windows machines — a development that could bring one of the industry’s longest‑running browser...