EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager questions Google's rivals over search and advertising

EU's Google probe continues with questioning of rivals expected to finish in January

Google's rivals are being questioned by European Union regulators over the internet giant's business practices as part of the EU's four-year investigation into the company.

A settlement had been in the pipeline last year, but stalled after Google complained about the level of fines that the EU planned to impose.

Now, the EU is seeking further information from Google's rivals about how it competes in shopping, maps and other online search services. The responses will be completed in January after the EU's new competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, has conducted meetings with the companies that complained about Google's business practices.

It follows an astonishing vote in the European Parliament, sponsored by German and Spanish MEPs, that made a thinly veiled call for the US-based company to be split up. Privacy watchdogs have also criticised the company for its response to the so-called "right to be forgotten", in which the European Court of Justice compelled search services to de-link people on request from responses to searches.

Google has been investigated for four years over complaints that it abuses its dominant market power. Privacy campaigners have also argued that Google shows insufficient respect for people's privacy by building up a massive database of their online viewing habits - via its search services, other online services, and Android and Chrome software - and using this to sell targeted advertising.

According to Bloomberg, Google's rivals have been asked by the EU investigators about how many visits their sites receive from Google's search results and advertisements, how much revenue those visits generate and how much it might cost them in advertising on Google to lure those visits, one of the people said.

It comes in the same week that Google announced the closure of its Google News service in Spain after a new copyright law was introduced compelling it to pay publishers for providing snippets and links to news and features.

"The new law requires publishers to charge Google News for showing even the smallest snippets of their content - whether they want to charge or not," the company said in a statement. It added that Google News shows no advertising and makes no revenue from the service.