Google is the focus of U.S. government antitrust investigations, trying to determine whether the Internet search giant abused its dominant position in the online advertising market in order to crush competitors.
Prosecutors from at least three U.S. states have started investigations on the operations of Google, said a source close to the situation.
The person declined to give details but said that the Attorneys General of California, Ohio and New York are in the early stages of investigations.
Sources close to the investigation have provided similar information to Financial Times.
However, Wall Street Journal writes that Google will receive the “equivalent of a civil summons” from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in an investigation on the company’s search operations on the Internet.
The company, which dominates the U.S. market and the global Internet search and advertising through this channel has been repeatedly accused by the competitors of favoring their own services in search results, against those offered by rivals.
Representatives of Google and FTC declined to comment on information.
Attorneys General of California and New York have also refused to comment, while the Ohio State Attorney General was not available for comment.
U.S. antitrust authorities have been concerned for some time of Google’s industry dominance in internet searches. The company is also investigated in Europe by the European Commission since November last year.
Governments in America and Europe have received numerous complaints concerning the activities of Google from most of the company’s rivals.
Meanwhile, shares of the company entered a steep downward trend. After starting the year slightly above $600 per share, Google fell below $500 on Nasdaq and closed Thursday at $480.2 per share.
The company has done well in the past several antitrust investigations, emerging in 2008 from an online search agreement with Yahoo after the U.S. Justice Department suggested that it will challenge that agreement.
In addition, a New York judge ruled that Google’s agreements with several publishers to create a huge digital library is illegal, partly because Google would get the copyright of books whose authors can not be found.