Italy's antitrust authority says it has opened an inquiry into Google, Apple, and Dropbox over cloud computing services, including “unfair clauses in contracts”
Italy's competition authority has opened an investigation into cloud storage services operated by Apple …
Context & Ripple Effects
The AGCM's inquiry into Google, Apple, and Dropbox over cloud storage terms is the opening move in what becomes a sustained Italian campaign against the two US platforms: it precedes the €10M fines over aggressive data practices, the 2022 probe alleging Google hindered interoperability with other platforms, and the investigation into Apple exempting its own apps from App Tracking Transparency.
What makes this case notable in the arc is the target set: Dropbox is swept in alongside the gatekeepers, signaling that the authority is policing contract fairness across consumer cloud services broadly, not just self-preferencing by OS owners — a theme that resurfaces years later when the same regulator probes whether iOS interoperate with third-party clouds under the DMA and examines Google's consent-request practices.
First-order effects
- Google, Apple, and Dropbox face information demands from the AGCM and potential rewrites of the standard contract clauses governing their Italian cloud customers.
- Apple and Google, already the subjects of parallel Italian probes, now have a second front opened on their consumer cloud businesses specifically.
Second-order effects
- Smaller cloud rivals gain a regulatory lever: if unfair-clause findings land on the incumbents' standard terms, competitors can pitch contract fairness as a differentiator for Italian business customers.
- A adverse finding would give other EU national competition authorities a template for attacking cloud contract terms without waiting for bloc-level action.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — fines for data practices, interoperability probes, DMA cloud cases — platform-to-customer contracts shift from boilerplate to a regulated surface, with national enforcers converging on cloud services as the next leverage point after app stores.
The trend: European regulators are extending antitrust scrutiny from app-store gatekeeping to the contract terms of consumer cloud services, with Italy's AGCM running one of the most persistent campaigns against Apple and Google.