A year-long inquiry into voice assistants reminiscent of Alexa and Siri and different Internet-connected units has led to amongst greater than 200 corporations expressing issues of potential anti-competitive practices, EU antitrust regulators mentioned on Wednesday.
The European Commission has opened related inquiries previously into sectors reminiscent of e-commerce, prescribed drugs, monetary providers, and vitality that finally led to circumstances in opposition to corporations and hefty fines.
Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Alphabet’s Google Assistant are among the many hottest voice assistant units.
“When we launched this sector inquiry, we were concerned that there might be a risk of gatekeepers emerging in this sector,” European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager mentioned in a press release.
“From the first results published today, it appears that many in the sector share our concerns,” she mentioned.
The EU antitrust watchdog mentioned respondents cited issues about sure exclusivity and tying practices associated to voice assistants and the place of intermediaries between customers and good units.
They additionally raised issues in regards to the intensive entry of suppliers of voice assistants and good units to troves of knowledge, and the shortage of interoperability between units, with proprietary know-how appearing as de facto requirements.
The Commission mentioned the findings of the inquiry could be open to a 12-week lengthy public session ending Septemeber 1, with a closing report due within the first half of 2022.
© Thomson Reuters 2021
