The Federal Commerce Commission (FTC) will advance with extensive antitrust research in Microsoft's operations. Announced in the last days of the Biden administration, the new president of the FTC of the Trump administration, Andrew Ferguson, will lead the investigation. The FTC sent Microsoft a civil research demand in recent years, asking him to provide data on his AI models, including the way in which training data is obtained and how much it is difficult to train an AI. The civil research demand dates back to 2016 and covers almost a decade of data.
Why the FTC is investigating Microsoft
The agency will also investigate Microsoft for canceling part of its own internal development of AI after accepting investing in the OpenAi competitor. Microsoft did not reveal their investment in OpenAi to regulators in advance, as it should have done. The FTC will investigate whether the agreement was structured as an association to avoid fusion investigation, which could have led to the agreement to be blocked.
The FTC also requested additional details about Microsoft data centers and the difficulty of the technological giant to obtain sufficient computer power to meet customer demands. He also wants more information about how Microsoft licensed software packages: competitors have complained that packages such as Microsoft 365 make it difficult to compete against the software giant.
The FTC said it is looking to determine whether the other Microsoft companies give it an advantage over other AI companies and said it hopes to obtain a better understanding of cloud computing costs through the data provided by Microsoft. These additional details and data will help determine whether or not to bring a case against Microsoft.
These investigations can take years and, often, not result in positions. Microsoft will probably seek to reduce the scope of the information and the requested data, which is a common movement during these investigations.
FTC to pursue other cases against large technological companies
This movement indicates that the new president of the FTC, Ferguson, intends to continue investigating the technological giants, a commitment he affirmed in his first public comments at the end of February when he called to investigate the technological sector its highest priority.
Microsoft is not the only technology company currently under FTC research. Ferguson inherited several cases of the Biden administration, including demands against Amazon Inc. and goal Inc. (which Facebook and Instagram possesses).
