Google scraps some cloud data transfer fees in EU and UK

LONDON (Reuters) -Google said on Wednesday it had scrapped data transfer fees for organisations processing workloads "in parallel" across two or more cloud platforms in the European Union and Britain ahead of the EU Data Act coming into effect on Friday.

Regulators in the EU and Britain have been trying to increase competition in the fast-growing cloud market, which is dominated by Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and to a lesser extent Google Cloud.

Google said its move went beyond a requirement in the Act to charge fees "at cost".

Microsoft introduced at cost data transfer fees in the EU last month, according to information published on its website on August 26. AWS said on its website that EU customers could request reduced data transfer rates for eligible use cases.

Google said its multicloud "Data Transfer Essentials" offer was a simple solution for data transfers between Google Cloud and other providers.

Some organisations use multiple cloud providers to process workloads in order to increase resilience and flexibility.

"Although the Act allows cloud providers to pass through costs to customers, Data Transfer Essentials is available today at no cost to customers," Jeanette Manfra, senior director global risk and compliance, Google Cloud, said in a blog post.

The EU Data Act aims to make it easier to switch between cloud providers.

Britain's antitrust regulator has also raised concerns about competition in the cloud market, and in July it singled out Microsoft's licensing practices for adversely impacting other providers.

(Reporting by Paul Sandle;Editing by Helen Popper)

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