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The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has opened an investigation into Microsoft for alleged monopolistic practices in the software licensing, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud, and security businesses. The investigation into Microsoft comes months after the Department of Justice (DOJ) found Google guilty of monopolizing the business in August.
One of the areas that will be the focus of the investigation is how Microsoft bundles various productivity and security software with its Azure cloud service. This will be the second major battle Microsoft has faced with government agencies after the investigation into them was conducted after they bundled Internet Explorer with every Windows operating system.
Although the court initially ordered Microsoft to separate its operating system business from its software business, it was later changed to the company providing API access to outside developers to enable software to be developed for Windows.