Missouri probe of Google

Missouri’s attorney general announced Monday that his office is investigating Google for potential violations of the state’s consumer-protection and antitrust laws.

Republican Josh Hawley, who also is running for Democratic U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill’s seat in 2018, told reporters that he issued an “investigative subpoena” to gather information. Asked whether his Senate bid influenced his decision to investigate, he said the goal is to “protect the people of Missouri.”

Hawley’s office is checking into what Google does with the user information it collects and allegations that it inappropriately scrapes information from competitors’ websites. It’s also looking into allegations that the company manipulates search results to favor its own websites over competitors’, which has been the subject of recent scrutiny in Europe.

Spokesman Patrick Lenihan said that Google had not received the subpoena. “However, we have strong privacy protections in place for our users and continue to operate in a highly competitive and dynamic environment,” Lenihan said.

The Missouri investigation comes on the heels of a $2.7 billion antitrust fine issued to the tech giant by the European Union in June for unfairly featuring its own shopping services in its influential search results.