BRUSSELS — The European Commission has preliminarily concluded that Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure should fall under the EU’s digital dominance rules, in a move that extends Europe’s most powerful tech regulation into cloud infrastructure for the first time.

The decision, which follows a market investigation launched last November, marks an expansion of the Digital Markets Act — which has so far covered consumer-facing platforms, app stores and search engines — into the €220 billion European market for cloud computing services.

Both companies will now have the opportunity to argue why their cloud services should not be designated gatekeepers before the Commission reaches a final decision in the administrative procedure by December.

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