EU launches antitrust probe focusing on Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri

Are voice assistants such as Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri, and Google Assistant stifling competition when they only let you stream music from a single service, or when then send you to a specific shopping site by default? It's a fair question, and one that European Union regulators are looking to answer as part of a "sweeping" antitrust probe, Bloomberg reports. The European Commission announced the massive probe on Thursday, with EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager warning of a "serious risk" that Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, and similar voice assistants could be helping "big companies" such as Amazon, Apple, and Google "push markets beyond the tipping point where competition turns into monopoly." EU regulators, who are slated to survey more than 400 firms as part of the probe, will be focussing on how users of Alexa, Google Assistant, and other voice assistants may often "be presented with an option" rather than a full slate of competitive choices, according to Bloomberg. If a particular voice assistant tends to favor its own products and services over those of a competitor, that "might lead to the fast emergence of dominant digital ecosystems and gatekeepers and might present tipping risks," Bloomberg continues.