EU planning to slap Google with antitrust suite?

A new report by the WSJ claims that while Google might have avoided antitrust charges in the US, it seems the EU won't leave the company alone. Nothing is official yet but evidence is mounting that after a long-running probe, the European Commission is now in the final stages of getting a statement of objections together.

The most telling piece is that regulators are seeking permission to publish details from previous complaints, against deadlines of just a couple of days. WSJ writes the antitrust case could hit Google in the next few weeks.

A Brussels lawyer representing one of Mountain View's competitors said: "The fact that the commission has been seeking fuller [information] from complainants, against short deadlines [of] a couple of days, shows it is in the final stages of getting a statement of objections together. It's part of the choreography you always see."

Most of the companies involved in the case run shopping, travel and local websites. If that sounds like deja vu, that's because the complaints Google is facing in the EU are similar in nature to the ones filed against it stateside. European companies also accuse the tech giant of gaming search results, placing its own products such as Google Shopping or Local in more prominent positions in the list, as well as burying competitors' websites. The commission is also investigating whether Mountain View really scrapes content from its rivals' websites to use as its own.

Source: Engadget