Tom Fairless

European Union antitrust regulators are preparing to step up their investigations into Google on several fronts, including revisiting a proposed settlement over its search-engine practices that has met with unprecedented opposition.

The European Commission is likely to revise some terms of a settlement announced in February, aimed at dealing with concerns that the company abuses its dominance of online searches in Europe, a person with knowledge of the situation said.

The antitrust probes are only one element of a number of challenges faced by Google in Europe, where the company has faced allegations over issues ranging from corporate taxes to copyright issues to data privacy.

The commission is also deepening a second line of investigation into Google's business practices relating to its Android operating system for mobile phones. The Android inquiry isn't yet a formal investigation, but it is likely to become one, the person said.

European Union antitrust officials have started questioning rival firms about Facebook's proposed $19 billion acquisition of messaging service WhatsApp, ahead of a formal review that could be a test case for how to apply EU competition law to the new world of social media.

Officials at the European Commission, the EU's central competition authority, have in recent weeks sent detailed questionnaires to several technology and online-messaging companies, asking about the merger's effect on competition in their markets, according to people familiar with the matter.

The questionnaires also drill down into a relatively new area for merger reviews: how the companies control and use personal data when they offer services, some of the people said.

The commission's questioning of rivals comes before the EU opens a formal merger review that will provide one of the first in-depth looks at the app economy and social media through the lens of competition law, antitrust lawyers and technology executives say.

Google is facing fresh accusations of anticompetitive behavior in Europe over its Android operating system for mobile phones, even as the Web giant struggles to overcome separate concerns over its dominance of online search.

It said it filed with European Union regulators, Aptoide -- a Portuguese company that runs a marketplace for mobile applications, or app store -- claims that Google is abusing its dominant position in the smartphone market to push users away from app stores that rival its own, Google Play.

"We are struggling to grow, even to survive, in the face of Google systematically setting up obstacles for users to install third-party app stores in the Android platform and blocking competition in their Google Play store," said Paulo Trezentos, Aptoide's co-founder and CEO.

The Lisbon-based company, which says it has six million unique monthly users, said it planned to "join forces with other independent app stores to forge a common front" against Google. The complaint is the latest in a litany of antitrust woes facing the US search giant in Europe.

European Union regulators said they have opened formal investigations into the tax practices of Apple Starbucks and a Luxembourg-based division of Fiat, as part of a broader probe into whether multinational companies have enjoyed sweeter tax deals than are permitted under EU law.

The European Commission, which acts as the region's central antitrust authority, said it would examine whether generous tax arrangements granted to global corporations in three EU countries -- Apple in Ireland, Fiat Finance and Trade in Luxembourg and Starbucks in the Netherlands -- amounted to illegal state aid.

“In the current context of tight public budgets, it is particularly important that large multinationals pay their fair share of taxes," said EU antitrust chief Joaquín Almunia.

The commission has requested information from two other EU countries -- the UK, in relation to Gibraltar, and Belgium -- as part of the same broad investigation, Almunia said. At issue are so-called transfer-pricing arrangements, under which companies can redistribute profit within a group by charging for goods or services sold by one subsidiary to another, typically located in different countries. Experts say transfer pricing can help companies to minimize their tax bills.

Almunia said that such arrangements could violate EU rules on state aid if certain companies are allowed to engage in transfer pricing that doesn't reflect market terms.

Facebook has asked European Union antitrust regulators to examine its $19 billion deal to buy messaging service WhatsApp, in an attempt to avoid other antitrust reviews by individual countries, people familiar with the matter said.

The move was unexpected because the deal already had been approved in the US and wasn't expected to face scrutiny by the European Commission, the EU's central antitrust authority. However, in light of potential reviews from different countries, Facebook is seeking one hearing that will cover the entire 28-nation bloc.

"Facebook might prefer to go to the commission than go before several national regulators, which would each ask it for information," said Thomas Graf, an antitrust lawyer with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in Brussels. The commission also might be expected to take a more neutral approach than national authorities, which would face vigorous lobbying from local interest groups such as national telecom companies, experts said.

The deal has raised concerns among Europe's telecom companies, which have warned that WhatsApp -- a service that acts as a replacement for text and picture messaging -- would give Facebook a dominant position in the market for instant messaging in Europe.