Google's ad business, which generated over $100 billion in sales last year, is Alphabet's biggest moneymaker. It accounted for about 80 per cent of annual revenue, despite efforts over the past decade to push into selling hardware, subscription services and cloud computing technology.

The European Commission launched an investigation into Google's adtech business last year, concerned that the US tech giant may have an unfair advantage over rivals and advertisers. Given that it has done this three times before and suffered fines for its antics, one would think that the EU might be wanting to get tough on what amounts to a serial repeat offender. So far Google has racked up more than 8 billion euros in EU antitrust fines in the last decade and it does not appear to be concerned about getting another.

The EU competition watchdog is likely to issue the charges early next year although the timing may still change. The Commission has asked third parties to delete confidential details in their submissions, usually a precursor to allowing Google to access documents following the receipt of a statement of objections.

Google could avert the charges by offering more concessions to settle the investigation. Some companies prefer to see the precise regulatory concerns before proposing remedies tailored to these. Or it could just offer to pay another huge fine, make a few token changes to its business operation and consider the matter settled until the next time.

In this case if the EU really demanded serious changes it could carve up Google's advertising-driven business model, affecting advertisers, publishers, ad tech providers and users.

Advertisers and publishers have been miffed about Google's ad-tech conduct for many years. Google is operating on multiple sides of the advertising transaction and giving both publishers and advertisers a raw deal. It will be interesting if this time the EU can get the leopard to change its spots.