Italy’s antitrust authority has started an inquiry against the leading tech firms, Google, Apple, and Dropbox, over the issue of cloud computing services compliance. Yet again, the tech giants are under scrutiny by the antitrust authorities about the security and business fairness.
Italian Authority Probing Tech Firms on Antitrust Issues
The Italian authority named as Autorità Garante Della Concorrenza e del Mercato has released an official statement about the same. It has said that it is observing and investigating the unfair commercial practices by the cloud services companies and found that the companies have been unable to establish trust. The competition body is responsible for probing into matters related to antitrust issues which entail customer data.
The official statement released by the authority cited,
“The proceedings relate to alleged improper commercial practices and the possible inclusion of unfair clauses in contract conditions.”
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An Official Statement was released.
The authority said that these companies could not prove and justify how they collect and utilize consumer data for commercial use. Right now, several American companies are facing backlash in Europe over the concerns of the legitimate use of consumer data. There are also allegations on the companies for compromising user privacy and data security.
European Union Probing Several US Firms
There are several investigations underway in the European Union in related matters. A few days ago, Facebook also received an antitrust lawsuit wherein EU authorities probed the company for issues related to compromise of employee privacy.
Within the controversies of the selling user data to Third Parties, Google informed the European Union that it would not be using the Fitbit data for any commercial advertisement after it served the justification to get approval for buying the fitness wearable company.
Even the US Department of justice is currently set to start an antitrust case against Google as per the New York Times for its initiatives in the Video Streaming and Search market.
Impact on the Shares
With the news of the antitrust probe, the Class A Shares of Alphabet Inc closed at 3 percent lower at $1,581.21, and Class C shares at almost 3.10% lower at $1,591.04. On the other hand, Apple shares were the same, while the shares of Dropbox dropped to nearly 4 percent lower at 19.75 dollars
