Amazon faces U.S. antitrust scrutiny on cloud business: Bloomberg

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Amazon is seen on the door of an Amazon Books retail store in New York City, U.S., February 14, 2019. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

(Reuters) – U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has broadened its scrutiny of Amazon.com Inc beyond its retail operations to include its cloud-computing business, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The U.S. antitrust enforcers have been asking software companies about practices around Amazon’s cloud unit Amazon Web Services, the report said.

FTC and Amazon did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.

In cloud computing, one of the fastest-growing areas in the technology industry, businesses rent out servers from Amazon instead of running their own data centers.

Analysts expect Amazon’s cloud unit, which is the global leader in terms of market share, to generate $34.9 billion in sales in 2019, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Reporting by Rishika Chatterjee in Bengaluru, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips

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source: reuters.com