Whether it’s lucrative cloud deals, large-scale construction of data centres or system failures that cripple entire sectors, the ubiquity of (mainly) American tech companies in the European IT landscape increasingly demonstrates the urgent need for some kind of counterweight on the continent. If only to prevent overseas tech giants from buying, enticing or threatening their way to total market dominance.
Take the recently concluded case of Microsoft making the use of its own services more attractive on its cloud platform Azure. Several large American hyperscalers and European companies fought each other over this for two years.
Microsoft’s services were priced just a bit more attractively on its own platform than on AWS and Google Cloud Platform. While they were also available there, they were more expensive. The message for users: if you don’t want to pay too much for the Microsoft suite you probably already use, you should really be on Azure.
A consortium of European cloud players considered this unfair business practices. Microsoft’s services should cost the same everywhere, regardless of the platform they run on. This case was already brought before EU antitrust regulators in 2022.
Offering cash and benefits
To some surprise, however, the group of cloud companies reached an agreement with Microsoft to settle the case. Microsoft allegedly offered a cash contribution of between 10 and 30 million euros and flexible conditions for using its software in local cloud infrastructures.
Tip: Microsoft reaches deal with European cloud players over privileging Azure
As it turned out, Microsoft supposedly offered to turn a blind eye to proper licensing of its software for the next two years. This was not necessarily done because the company is overflowing with the milk of human kindness. Google offered the companies a cool 470 million euros to continue pursuing the lawsuit.
It is conceivable that Microsoft looked at the cloud infrastructures of the various companies and said to them, “Nice environments you have here. It would be unfortunate if we were to run an extensive software audit on it to check that everything was purchased neatly through official channels.” No matter how it really went down: the cloud players agreed to Microsoft’s proposal.
The cloud providers are united in an organisation called CISPE (Cloud Infrastructure Providers in Europe). It has 35 full members and three ‘adherent members’, according to the website. Interestingly, U.S.-based AWS is also a full member and has a prominent spot on the CISPE site under the heading ‘Members’.
Just a little bigger than the rest
It may be a coincidence, but the way the list of participants’ logos is laid out almost suggests that AWS at least occupies a dominant position: at the top in the middle, its logo is just slightly larger than the rest.

It is also interesting to note that during the two-year-long Azure case, Microsoft decided to exempt AWS users from additional fees for using its software. American deal-making behind the backs of much smaller European competitors, who seem to weigh financial incentives and veiled threats more than their own principles? Nothing human is alien to them, it seems.
This case makes clear that big American companies, either this way or that way, exert a huge influence on Europe’s digital landscape. Not only through their control over the market –they simply offer services that many people and companies like to use–, but also through the use of laws and regulations designed precisely to curb their power.
Companies no one can ignore
Regulations like the European Commission’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) are intended to ensure that no single party (whether they are American or not) gains an overly dominant position, in addition to providing consumer protection. In particular, the law targets six companies whose services are so ubiquitous that they should be subject to special rules. Except for one company (China’s Bytedance, best known for short video app TikTok), these so-called ‘gatekeepers’ are all American: Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft.
That other set of Brussels laws, the DSA (Digital Services Act), deals mostly with illegal content and applies to more companies and services. In addition to the usual suspects like Amazon, LinkedIn, Facebook, and various Google services, it also targets AliExpress (China), Booking.com (Netherlands), and Zalando (Germany), among others.
But whether it’s the DMA or the DSA, the biggest companies eagerly seize on such legislation to make life difficult for each other. In doing so, they join all kinds of EU policymakers as well as European IT players, who use legislation as part of their competitive strategy. The companies fight each other not only in the free market but also in court, as do EU legislators.
Favouring their own services
Such was the case with Meta and ByteDance. They felt that X and Amazon paid too low a surveillance fee required to comply with this package of laws. Furthermore, under the banner of the DMA, there is an ongoing investigation into Google initiated by the European Commission itself. Google allegedly favours its own services in its Play Store (and thus pushing down other competing services).
Before there was a DMA or DSA, there was already a case against Microsoft over the extent to which it integrated its products into its platforms, effectively shutting out competition in advance. European players OVHcloud and Nextcloud took the case to court.
And don’t forget the 2020 antitrust case against Microsoft. The company supposedly gave video conferencing platform Teams too much priority in Windows and Office, potentially causing unfair competition for alternative providers. The EC is preparing a new investigation, but U.S.-based Slack initially filed the case. Slack is now part of Salesforce, also American.
The EC suspects Meta of violating both the DMA and the DSA. The company allegedly unlawfully combines user data through its platforms. A DMA investigation should reveal whether this is so. Also, the maligned ‘pay-or-consent’ model, where Instagram and Facebook users pay to not see personalized ads, may be against the rules as well. This time the ones stipulated in the DSA.
‘Lawfare’ is familiar territory for Americans
There is something ironic about this ‘lawfare’. To curb the influence of (especially) American companies, a system has been created whereby these companies meet each other, their competitors, and policymakers in court or at the negotiating table—just the kind of places that feel like home for dyed-in-the-wool, hard-balling, litigiously minded American players.
In any case, all this suing, settling, complaining, sidestepping, and counter-suing provides enough work for an army of lawyers, advisers, consultants, policy wonks and politicians. Whether it will actually lead to more choices for consumers and citizens in Europe remains to be seen.
Plenty of investment in data centers
Besides a stick, you also need a carrot. So the big players are investing heavily in European regions to build a European ‘sovereign cloud,’ or data centers where the data stored is subject to European rules. AWS in particular, which is second only to Microsoft as a provider of cloud services in Europe, is eager to invest –a lot.
For example, the company is spending billions to expand its data center in Italy. Earlier, AWS announced that it was spending some 7.8 billion euros to expand existing capacity in Frankfurt. The Amazon unit is also pouring 15.7 billion euros into the Spanish region of Aragon. That should create 17,500 jobs for the entire supply chain. The center should run largely on renewable energy and even return water to the environment through reclamation efforts. Microsoft’s Azure, still favourite among Europeans, wants to play its part, investing 6.69 billion euros in the same region.
Tip: AWS puts 7.8 billion into expansion European Sovereign Cloud
Second fiddle
Where are European companies in this story? Those are playing second fiddle. They may use the data centers, but both companies and governments are not even assured of data residency, a recent incident in Scotland showed. The Dutch registry SIDN is closing its own server farm on which the .nl registration system currently runs. It is now crossing over to the other side of the Atlantic. To Canada, to be fair. But the Fury registration system developed with its Canadian counterpart CIRA will soon run in a data center in Frankfurt under the banner of…. AWS.
To conclude, in the field of cybersecurity, it appears that also many organizations in Europe lean on the services offered by American companies. Of course, those companies are not bad in themselves; indeed, they often provide indispensable services. But their influence is so great that if one catches a cold, entire sectors in Europe and beyond get pneumonia.
In search of alternatives
In that light, a European cloud system and national alternatives are not a bad idea. You don’t win the battle for market dominance just by constructing bulky legislation to impede more innovative or bold competitors while eagerly accepting billions of dollars from those same companies.
In Europe, we urgently need companies, entrepreneurs, visionaries, and inventors who will go against the grain and bring their own ideas to fruition. How do we want to shape the IT infrastructure in Europe? What is in our interest? That way, we can prevent this continent from permanently remaining a digital dependency.