Like everywhere else, the search giant is accused of abusing its dominance of Internet search to stifle competition in India. Now the preliminary findings of the 3-year old probe were submitted to the local competition commission and to the company.

This time and in this country, the inquiry revolves around complaints filed by a number of rival sites contending that Google has been unfairly highlighting its own online services in its search results, thus harming their online business and stifling competition. It is no surprise that the allegations are similar to other accusations of unauthorized self-promotion in the United States, Europe and other parts of the world.

Google in India was given time until 10 September to respond to the preliminary findings. However, that deadline could be extended under some circumstances. Google claimed it was confident it would be cleared of wrongdoing.

It should be mentioned that the company is already facing similar allegations in Europe. There, the European Commission claimed that Google rigged its shopping results to the detriment of rivals. At the moment, European regulators continue to examine whether the company manipulated other types of search results to keep traffic away from the rival services that could diminish its own advertising sales.

The tech giant has denied the allegations everywhere, including Europe. In case of losing the case in Europe, it could face a multi-billion Euro fine. However, Google has one victory under its belt: two years ago, antitrust regulators in the United States wrapped up a probe into Google’s practices without requiring that the search engine make any major changes to how it ranks websites.