EU launches anti-trust probe into e-commerce sector

The EU formally opened an anti-trust inquiry into Europe's online shopping marketplace on Wednesday amid concerns about how major websites such as Amazon and Google use their influence.

The competition probe is the most aggressive part of a new digital market strategy unveiled by the European Commission vice president Andrus Ansip aimed at dragging the 28-state bloc into the 21st century.

"The European Commission has launched a competition inquiry into the e-commerce sector in the European Union in the context of the Digital Single Market Strategy," the Commission said in a statement.

The anti-trust probe will particularly focus on areas such as electronics, clothing, shoes and digital content for which so-called e-commerce is most used for, it said.

The inquiry, originally trailed by EU Competition Commissioner Margarethe Vestager in March, is expected to deliver a preliminary report by mid-2016 and a final report by the end of March 2017.

Internet giants Amazon, Apple and Google have been hit by previous EU investigations targeting individual companies, which have exposed deep divisions between Washington and Brussels on trade regulation.

Unlike those, Wednesday's probe deals with the entire e-commerce sector in Europe and whether "competition may be distorted within the internal market".

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