It's under attack but the Google empire keeps expanding.
European Union regulators have begun an investigation into whether Google is abusing its market position by elbowing out its competitors and imposing exclusivity obligations on advertising partners, preventing them from placing certain types of competing ads on their websites, as well as on computer and software vendors.
This is big news but Google is undeterred.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is on the verge of making its biggest acquisition yet, planning to offer more than $5 billion for the online daily deal site Groupon. The Groupon business is about offering daily discounts on services, goods, and food from local retailers. There's one catch: to get the deal, a minimum number of users must sign up for the sale.
This is an important deal for Google because it will give the company a significant foothold in the growing market of online advertising, a strategic edge over its competitors and for that matter, media companies.
At the same time, we have reports that Google is going into competition with Amazon and Apple's iPad tablet by opening an online store for electronic versions of books in the US this year and internationally in 2011.
Google's expansion plans are extraordinary to watch. But it's going to make regulators nervous. The EU action is a taste of things to come.
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