US justice department ‘preparing competition probe over Google’

The US justice department is readying an investigation of Google’s business practices and whether they violate competition law, according to reports.

The search giant was fined a record $2.72bn by European regulators in 2017 for abusing its dominance of the online search market.

In the US, the federal trade commission carried out an antitrust investigation of Google, but closed it in 2013 without taking action.

Now, the American justice department has undertaken a probe of the company, according to reports by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Bloomberg News.