WHEN it comes to forging high-level political connections in Washington, DC, Google is something of an expert. Eric Schmidt, its executive chairman, sits on the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. Marissa Mayer, a Google executive, has hosted a fundraiser in Silicon Valley for Barack Obama. And the company spends millions of dollars on high-powered lobbying firms. But such links have not deterred policymakers and competition watchdogs in America's capital from looking into whether Google is abusing the clout that it has in certain markets.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, America's Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is preparing to launch a formal investigation into whether or not the search firm has abused its position in search-related advertising. Neither the FTC nor Google will confirm that an investigation is pending, but it would hardly be surprising if one is soon up-and-running. After all, Google already faces a wide-ranging probe in Europe, where the company is being scrutinised by the European Commission for allegedly abusing its dominant position in the search business there—a charge that the company strongly denies.

Politicians have been sniffing around Google's business in America too. A subcommittee of the Senate that looks into antitrust matters has been holding hearings into claims that the firm unfairly penalises some e-commerce services that compete with its own offerings. This has led to friction between senators on the committee—who want Google to send Mr Schmidt and Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google and its chief executive, to appear before them—and Google, which has argued that David Drummond, its chief legal officer, is a more appropriate person to address the senators' questions. In a recent letter to Google, senators said the importance of the issue at hand justified the call for Google's top brass to attend.

Worth studying

That Google is attracting such attention is hardly surprising. The firm controls around two-thirds of the search market in America and has been pushing to increase its online-advertising revenues. As part of that ambition it recently paid $400m for AdMeld, which helps publishers to manage digital advertisements. That deal is due to be scrutinised by America's Justice Department.

Other big deals that Google has made, including its purchase of AdMob, another advertising business, and ITA, a service that organises flight information online, have ultimately been given a green light by regulators. But the internet firm has suffered setbacks elsewhere, notably in its efforts to persuade a federal judge to accept a proposed settlement related to its attempts to create a universal online book library.

Google has repeatedly maintained that companies that accuse it of manipulating its search results are guilty of sour grapes because they have seen their performance in searches decline. It points out that not all sites can come top of its rankings and claims that it makes a considerable effort to ensure that the integrity of its search results is not compromised. Its critics charge that now Google has a presence in so many different businesses, its temptation to tweak search results in its favour is too great to resist.

Whatever the truth, this heightened scrutiny comes at an awkward time for Google. It recently boasted that its various online services are now being visited by a total of a billion people a month, which is a tremendous achievement. But the firm's share price has languished as investors fret about whether it can continue to grow its core search business at a fast pace and about the risk of greater regulatory scrutiny of its affairs. That risk looks like it is about to get bigger.

Read on: How long will Google's magic last? (Dec 2010)