Cloud giants’ “no cost exit” promises face Data Act test as fine print preserves lock in
Daniel Simon ·
Europe’s Data Act is now live for cloud switching, and Big Tech is already pointing to waived egress fees as evidence of compliance. The documents tell a harder story.
Under Regulation EU 2023 slash 2854, Articles 23 to 26 require providers to enable switching and to remove fees that hinder it, with most switching provisions applicable from September 2025. Penalties are set by member states and can be applied from the date of applicability, according to the text published in the Official Journal.
What the terms actually allow
Google announced no cost data transfer out for customers leaving the platform in a January 11 2024 post on the Google Cloud Blog. The program is limited to migration scenarios, is subject to eligibility checks, and excludes routine traffic, according to the posted terms.
Amazon Web Services introduced a Data Transfer Out to Internet fee waiver for customers that migrate away in a March 5 2024 program note on aws.amazon.com. It requires customers to move workloads off AWS and to close or significantly wind down the account, and it excludes inter region transfers and other common patterns.
Microsoft described an Azure exit program in a July 1 2024 blog entry that covers certain storage and compute data egress during qualified migrations. The terms condition eligibility on documented plans to leave Azure and do not cover partial or cyclical moves.
These waivers address a visible cost line. They do not touch committed spend discounts, early termination charges, or technical fragmentation that the UK Competition and Markets Authority flagged as lock in in its Public cloud infrastructure services market investigation final report on October 3 2023. The CMA found that high egress charges, complex discounts, and interoperability limits make switching costly and risky for customers at scale.
Why the lock in persists
Large buyers rarely pay list price. Three year commitments and ramped discounts can unwind if usage shifts, which exposes buyers to clawbacks or loss of rebates. Those are commercial penalties in everything but name, and they are not covered by headline egress waivers.
Technical barriers remain. Proprietary managed databases, unique identity integrations, and security tooling create translation and testing costs that sit outside network fees. The Data Act requires functional equivalence during switching but does not mandate providers to redesign services that were built to be unique.
European cloud challengers stand to gain if switching becomes real. OVHcloud and Scaleway have told investors that exit friction is their largest commercial obstacle, echoing the CMA’s findings on market concentration. Enterprise CIOs face budget and outage risk if they trigger contract clauses to move workloads in a hurry.
What happens next
The European Commission can open non compliance proceedings under the Data Act if providers use commercial or technical terms that undermine switching, based on Article 29 enforcement powers. National authorities set penalties and can require changes to standard contracts.
Providers will argue that they met the letter of the law by waiving network fees during exits. The documents suggest regulators will need to look past egress line items and test discount structures, migration eligibility rules, and interoperability in practice. The first audits will show whether the Data Act changes how cloud contracts work or only how providers describe them.