• The New York Times, Friday, December 17, 2010 2:34 PM

Meanwhile, in Brussels, European Union authorities have expanded their investigation of Google, reports The New York Times. E.U. authorities have apparently accepted two complaints from a group of newspaper and magazine publishers in Germany, and a German mapping company.

As The Times notes, Joaquin Almunia, the E.U. competition commissioner, announced the opening of a sweeping case against Google late last month, "saying his investigators would focus on whether Google gave preferential treatment to its own services when ranking search results, and whether it discriminated against competitors." With the additional cases, Almunia is expected to get access to additional evidence already collected by authorities in Germany, where over 80% of computer users reportedly rely on Google for searching. Google, meanwhile, is calling the decision largely procedural, according to The Times.

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