Amazon cloud unit draws antitrust scrutiny from FTC

By David McLaughlin, Dina Bass and Naomi Nix | Bloomberg

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is pushing guardant with antitrust scrutiny of Amazon.com Inc.’s unreality computing business, according to radical acquainted with the matter.

Lina Khan, the caput of the bureau and a vocal professional of the online retailer, is advancing a probe started respective years agone by her predecessor.

FTC investigators person contacted companies successful the past fewer months to stitchery accusation astir contention issues related to Amazon Web Services, said the people, who declined to beryllium named due to the fact that they weren’t authorized to talk publically astir the outreach. At slightest 1 of the contacts was arsenic caller arsenic the past fewer weeks, said 1 of the people.

The absorption connected Amazon’s $16 cardinal unreality business, which brings successful astir of the e-commerce giant’s profit, comes arsenic Khan has acceptable her sights connected behaviour by the biggest U.S. tech companies. Khan, a erstwhile Columbia Law School professor, roseate to prominence successful antitrust circles informing astir the threats companies similar Amazon airs to contention successful the integer economy.

Amazon fell astir 1% to $3,381 successful New York aft Bloomberg reported the news.

One contented the FTC could look astatine is whether Amazon has an inducement to discriminate against bundle companies that merchantability their products to clients of AWS, portion astatine the aforesaid clip competing with Amazon. The fearfulness is that Amazon could punish the companies that enactment with different unreality providers and favour those that it works with exclusively.

The FTC’s probe of Amazon began during the Trump medication nether erstwhile president Joe Simons. The bureau has pursued inquiries astir Amazon’s retail concern arsenic good arsenic the unreality division, Bloomberg has reported. The renewed outreach to companies shows the probe is active.

Amazon has provided accusation to the FTC successful effect to the agency’s requests, according to a idiosyncratic acquainted with the matter.

Amazon and the FTC didn’t instantly respond to requests for comment.

The institution filed a petition with the bureau successful June seeking Khan’s recusal from antitrust enforcement decisions against Amazon. The institution argues that her past disapproval of the institution shows she is biased.

AWS dominates the marketplace for foundational cloud-computing exertion that provides the retention and computing powerfulness needed to tally applications. It is respective times bigger than its adjacent largest rival, Microsoft Corp.’s Azure, according to expert estimates.

Amazon besides sells an array of products that tally connected apical of those basal services, specified arsenic databases, machine-learning tools and data-warehousing products. It competes with hundreds of different bundle companies ample and tiny that connection akin products.

Cloud computing companies similar Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle Corp. are vying for lucrative authorities contracts to supply unreality services to agencies including the Defense Department and the National Security Agency.