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According to Nextcloud, Microsoft is limiting consumer choice and creating an unfair barrier for other companies offering competitive services by pressuring them to sign up and hand over their data to the company. Microsoft’s EU market share has increased to 66 percent, while local providers’ market share has decreased from 26 percent to 16 percent. Microsoft has achieved this by significantly favoring its products and services, self-preferencing over competing services, rather than by any technical edge or commercial benefits. While self-preferencing is not unlawful in and of itself under EU competition laws, a corporation can break the law if it exploits its dominating market position. According to Nextcloud, Microsoft has effectively barred rival cloud service providers by utilizing its position as a gatekeeper to expand its reach in adjacent areas and draw consumers deeper into its ecosystems. As a result, more specialized EU companies cannot compete on merit, because the key to success is the capacity to distort competition and prevent market access, not a good product. Nextcloud isn’t the only corporation that has expressed dissatisfaction with its services. Microsoft’s integration of Teams with Office has prompted Slack to submit an antitrust complaint in the European Union (EU). This lawsuit is currently in progress.Īs a result, Nextcloud has petitioned the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition to prohibit such unfair behavior and maintain a competitive and fair market for all companies. This is what Nextcloud is doing by filing a formal complaint with this body. In addition, Nextcloud has requested an investigation into Microsoft from the German antitrust regulator, the Bundeskartellamt. It’s also considering pursuing a similar complaint in France with its partners. Several open-source, non-profit organizations have joined Nextcloud in their complaint. The European DIGITAL SME Alliance, the Document Foundation, which supports LibreOffice, and the Free Software Foundation Europe are among them (FSFE). ![]() ![]() The head of the Document Foundation, Lothar Becker, stated, “European citizens should be able to choose their digital tools for creating, storing, and sharing content, including using an open document format for their documents. Consumers are forced to use proprietary software as a result of Big Tech’s actions, which are predicated on their monopoly strength in the operating system space, limiting their freedom and digital rights. We agree with the accusation about anti-competitive activity and call on the EU to act quickly.” There will be no misuse of Microsoft’s dominating position in the operating system and adjacent markets (for example, by bundling, pre-installing, or leveraging extra Microsoft services) while maintaining a level playing field. Microsoft also has to embrace open standards and interoperability. This would provide European consumers with the freedom to choose from a variety of service options that should compete fairly on their merits.Customer data (also referred to as "your data" or "your business data") means all data, including text, sound, video or image files, and software that you provide to Microsoft or that's provided on your behalf through your use of Microsoft enterprise online services, excluding Microsoft Professional Services. It includes customer content, which is the data you upload for storage or processing and apps you upload for distribution through a Microsoft enterprise cloud service. When you use Microsoft 365 services, we start with the assumption that our enterprise customers would like to have their business data stored and processed close to home.įor example, customer content includes Exchange Online email and attachments, SharePoint Online site content, or instant messaging conversations.
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