http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/technology/salesforce-is-said-to-question-microsoft-linkedin-deal-in-europe.html 2016-09-29 20:37:32 Salesforce Is Said to Question Microsoft-LinkedIn Deal in Europe Salesforce, a San Francisco tech company, is said to have questioned whether Microsoft’s takeover of LinkedIn might hinder consumer choice and access to data. === Microsoft Now, Salesforce.com, an internet software company that also The competition questions have focused on whether Microsoft’s proposed deal would hinder access by people and companies to the vast collection of data held by The comments came in response to a questionnaire sent by the Salesforce.com’s concerns do not necessarily mean that Margrethe Vestager of Denmark, the region’s tough antitrust chief, will open an investigation into Microsoft’s purchase of LinkedIn, though on Thursday she raised her own questions about how digital data should be treated in future competition cases. “A company might even buy up a rival just to get hold of its data,” Ms. Vestager Ricardo Cardoso, a European Commission spokesman, declined to comment on Salesforce.com’s response to the competition questionnaire. A Microsoft spokeswoman, Jennifer Crider, declined to comment on the European Commission questionnaire, though he said the company had already received antitrust clearance in the United States and Canada and was working with other global authorities on similar approval. The company has yet to submit its LinkedIn deal to European competition authorities, but it is likely to do so by early November, at the latest. “We expect to close before the end of this calendar year,” Microsoft said in a statement on Thursday. A Salesforce.com spokeswoman, Chi Hea Cho, also declined to comment on the submitted antitrust concerns, but she said the company had been contacted by the European Commission as part of its review of the proposed deal. The company also made similar efforts in the United States to highlight the potential competition problems with the deal, but it failed to win over American authorities, said another person with knowledge of the matter. While Salesforce.com’s criticism of the acquisition could appear to be just sour grapes after it lost out on buying LinkedIn, its questions about how Microsoft’s control of data would potentially hinder rivals are gaining traction with some European officials. One possibility would be for Microsoft to combine LinkedIn’s information on people’s résumés and messaging activity on the social network with its own Office software, providing the tech giant with an advantage over rivals offering similar services. In previous statements, Microsoft said its own offerings did not overlap with LinkedIn’s and that competing services like Facebook, which also collect large amounts of data, also existed. Similar data-related concerns were raised in Europe when Facebook bought WhatsApp, the messaging app, in 2014 for $19 billion. The region’s authorities have been regularly criticized, particularly by European telecommunications operators, for approving that deal despite complaints that it would limit consumer choice. Ms. Vestager, who has already In an “The questions people have been asking are whether data can be duplicated, and can a competitor establish itself in the same way or buy a copy of another’s data,” she said.