European Commission opens the door to designating AWS and Azure as gatekeepers

On 25 June 2026, the European Commission said it had informed Amazon and Microsoft of its preliminary position: Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure should be designated as gatekeepers for their cloud computing services under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The verifiable development is not a new type of cloud service or the launch of a feature. It is a regulatory step that may affect how two large-scale cloud platforms are supervised. In other words, what changes at this stage is the status of the institutional examination, not anything the announcement describes as a new capability or service for users. The distinction matters because a regulatory notice and a product announcement serve different purposes: the former reports the Commission’s assessment, while the latter would describe a change people could use.

The word “preliminary” is essential. The announcement does not say that designation is already final, nor that the companies have been found to have infringed the law. It describes the Commission’s initial assessment and opens a period of evaluation before a conclusion. It would therefore overstate what has been confirmed to present AWS or Azure as already designated on the basis of this announcement. An initial view cannot be treated as settling the procedure or, by itself, predicting the content of a later decision. The Commission’s own page identifies the date, the companies and the preliminary nature of its position, and is the primary source for those points. European Commission: preliminary position on AWS and Azure

The DMA establishes a framework for digital platforms that meet the legal criteria for being designated as gatekeepers. The Commission described its June 2026 action as an assessment of how that framework applies to cloud computing services. The announcement expressly identifies AWS and Azure as the services covered by the preliminary opinion; it does not present the measure as a general decision about every cloud provider, or as an automatic reclassification of every product those companies sell. The scope should therefore be kept to the two named services and the specific treatment described in the communication. A broader interpretation would go beyond what the announcement says.

For customers and organisations, the practical distinction is between a signal of regulatory scrutiny and an obligation already in force as a result of a final designation. The available communication records the former, not the latter. The extract consulted also does not provide a complete timetable for possible obligations, an inventory of technical changes, or instructions for customers. The start of an assessment should not be confused with an immediate change to contracts, prices or services. The matter may be regulatorily significant, but the text does not explain how it would translate into specific operations, or allow readers to determine in advance what each provider would have to do. Customers should consequently avoid treating the announcement as a notice of an imminent service change.

The primary source for this report is the Commission’s DMA page, which records the announcement date, the names Amazon and Microsoft, and the preliminary nature of the position. A publication by the Directorate-General for Competition covers the same matter and uses the same general framing. Because these are communications from the institution responsible for the procedure, they provide direct evidence of what the Commission announced; they are not, on their own, a final ruling or an independent assessment of the claims. The second page corroborates the institutional communication, but does not turn a preliminary announcement into a final decision. The distinction between corroboration and finality is important when describing the status of a regulatory process.

The documentation included in this research supports the conclusion that the regulatory process advanced and that AWS and Azure are the services identified as potentially within its scope. Without a final decision or other subsequent documentation, it does not support saying that the Commission has completed the designation, set specific obligations for each service, or that Amazon and Microsoft have already changed their offerings in response. This caution does not undermine the news; it defines its scope and avoids presenting a procedural step as an accomplished outcome. It also separates what the sources establish—the date, the companies and the preliminary nature of the position—from consequences that are not documented here. European Commission, Directorate-General for Competition

For a company that depends on AWS or Azure, the announcement is a reason to follow regulatory developments, but it is not enough to treat it as notice of an outage or a specific operational change. The evidence consulted contains no customer instructions, effective date for new conditions, change to service levels, or tariff changes. Turning the preliminary position into a recommendation to migrate, for example, would be a conclusion unsupported by the sources. Following the issue does not mean that an organisation needs to change its architecture or purchasing decisions immediately. Businesses can distinguish prudent monitoring from actions that would require concrete information about their own services and contracts.

A useful review can focus on measures that have value regardless of the regulatory outcome: maintaining an inventory of services and dependencies, documenting portability requirements, identifying contractual commitments, and following official notices from the provider and the Commission. These are general cloud-risk management practices, not consequences announced in the preliminary position. An inventory clarifies which services are in use and what they depend on; documenting requirements and commitments ensures that relevant information is available if developments occur later. The announcement also does not support a conclusion that migrating to another provider would be easier, cheaper or more suitable. Any such assessment would need to be made on its own merits, rather than inferred from the Commission’s preliminary regulatory view.

The research also included explanatory pages about cloud models and publications from providers. That material helps explain what is meant by a cloud service, but does not by itself establish that a recent change has taken place. For this article, the solid news element is the institutional communication dated 25 June 2026; general pages about IaaS, SaaS or cloud computing cannot replace confirmation of a specific procedure. Distinguishing these sources prevents general explanations of technology from being treated as evidence of a particular regulatory notification. It also keeps the article focused on what was announced rather than on broader descriptions of the cloud market.

The conclusion should remain limited: the Commission expressed a preliminary view in favour of designating AWS and Azure as gatekeepers under the DMA. Final status, any resulting obligations and their practical effects for customers still depend on subsequent steps in the process. Until documentation confirms them, broader claims—including that terms of use have already changed—should be treated as unverified. The most precise reading is that there is an initial institutional position concerning two identified cloud services, not a description of changes already implemented or a mandatory action guide for their customers.