Opinion The government must protect consumers from Microsoft’s market dominance

Choice and competition are fundamental to a thriving economy. At least 42 brands sell cars in the United States, but imagine if buying a new car meant signing away your right to ever purchase or drive any other make for the rest of your life. This is, in essence, the choice Microsoft imposes on many of its customers through its restrictive licensing practices.

For consumers, small businesses, and local governments locked into Microsoft’s ecosystem, the reality is equally unpalatable.

It’s time to hold these practices accountable. Part of why I love working with the Connecticut Citizen Action Group is that we don’t follow anyone’s marching orders on who to hold accountable. We speak up against market injustices and call out bad actors wherever we find them. Microsoft’s sector dominance is an urgent antitrust issue demanding federal scrutiny and action.

Microsoft’s market share isn’t built on superior products. It’s the result of aggressive, restrictive licensing practices. Estimates show that in 2020, Microsoft had as much as an 86% share of the office software market. Their licenses force customers to use Microsoft’s full ecosystem, even when alternative solutions may be more suitable for some needs.

For example, Microsoft’s licensing terms ban customers from using their existing on-premise licenses with rival cloud providers and make it prohibitively expensive to use their software on competing cloud platforms, effectively locking them into Microsoft’s Azure cloud services.

These tactics don’t just limit consumer choice. They also stifle competition. Microsoft also imposes significant fees on customers who wish to transfer their data to another service, creating an environment where rivals struggle to compete. This grip on the market hampers innovation and keeps prices high, leaving public and private sector organizations with fewer, often more expensive, options.

Moreover, Microsoft’s push for dominance with its entire suite of tools also compromises security. The company has been criticized for only offering advanced protection features as part of their premium tiers and ties complimentary security updates to cloud platform usage.

Alarmingly, despite repeated breaches of Microsoft’s enterprise platforms, the company has not adequately addressed its security vulnerabilities. In 2023, Chinese state-backed hackers gained access to email accounts of senior U.S. government officials, including those at the State Department. This breach exploited a stolen encryption key from 2016 that Microsoft had failed to properly invalidate. The attack was linked to a separate intrusion of Microsoft’s corporate network in 2021. In 2024, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber Safety Review Board issued a scathing report, citing Microsoft’s ‘inadequate’ security culture and a ‘cascade of avoidable errors’ that enabled the breach.

The concentration of market power in Microsoft means that countless critical organizations, businesses, and government agencies rely on the same single vendor with a reputation for poor security practices. This “monoculture” significantly amplifies security risks. Microsoft’s infrastructure is both vulnerable and a prime target for hackers due to its massive user base, which includes entities handling sensitive national security information.

Microsoft’s documented lack of transparency following breaches, refusal to compete fairly, and its compromised security culture show that it cannot be trusted to self-regulate or address these critical issues. For the protection of all users, it’s essential that the federal government investigates Microsoft’s anti-competitive practices.

This is not about villainizing Big Tech. Technological advancements have revolutionized how we work and communicate. But unchecked dominance, regardless of the company, never benefits consumers and poses significant risks.