Google's stated goal is to have an index of all the world's information. It started with the Web, where the information it obtained allowed it to build a hugely successful search service. From there, the company branched out, both by internal development and acquisition; books got scanned, e-mail and documents hosted, and a variety of products, such as the Android operating system, appear to have been developed simply as a way of encouraging users to rely on other Google services. Now, even as the company is killing some of these non-core products due to the tough economic times, its diversity is causing it more trouble than it may be worth, as antitrust worries appear to be accompanying the company's every move.

Google first ran onto the antitrust shoals last year, when it was attempting to lock in a long-term partnership with Yahoo. Concerns raised by the Department of Justice eventually scuttled that deal, as the company chose to walk away rather than submit to limitations on the deal or long-term monitoring by the judiciary. Still, that case involved the placement of search ads, which is Google's core profit center, and an area where it's pulling ahead of its competitors.

A similar thing happened in a field where Google is equally (if not more) dominant, however: book search. The effort involved in scanning book material probably makes it more expensive, and the service is probably less popular than Web searches, so it's unlikely to be the same sort of profit center that Web search is. Nevertheless, Google's major commercial competitors have dropped out of that market (presumably because of the lower profit margins), leaving it in a dominant position.

Now, its best chance to capitalize on that position, a deal that would see Google become a retailer of out-of-print books, is running into the same sort of resistance. The Department of Justice is looking into the settlement Google reached with publishers and other rights holders. Meanwhile librarians, as parties to that settlement, have voiced reservations about Google's potential market power, suggesting that the settlement should be subjected to long-term monitoring by the judiciary, lest Google limit access to its library of scanned works.

Last week, Google came under fire for its Web browser and the Android mobile phone operating system, products for which there's no obvious route to profitability. The problem here is that Google CEO Eric Schmidt also sits on the board of a competitor in both those markets, Apple. There's no indication that Schmidt has exerted any sort of interest on the day-to-day operations in Cupertino, but it's still the sort of connection that makes antitrust authorities nervous.

Late last week, two events made it clear just how extensive the worries about Google's dominance have become: Microsoft cited it in arguing that the EU should go easy when evaluating the company's next moves in the operating system space, and Google itself felt compelled to go on record as saying there's nothing to worry about here.

On Friday, the Financial Times reported that Microsoft argued that EU regulators should back off any consideration of limiting Redmond's ability to distribute its Web browser with its OS. Any decision to do so, in Microsoft's view, would send OEMs running to Google in an attempt to bundle Chrome on their machines, which would in turn give Google even more search users. In essence, Microsoft is arguing that the browser no longer matters except as a vehicle for delivering search to users and, as such, Google is the dominant party.

Meanwhile, Google itself has gotten nervous about all this attention and, on the same day, published a blog post in which it argued that it is still in a competitive market place, and its services enable other competitive markets. Readers were invited to view a webinar in which those arguments are laid out in full.

In a lot of ways, Google is a victim both of its own success in search and its strategic approach to new markets. The company seemed to have services (rumored, in beta, and otherwise) in just about every online market imaginable, including some odd fits, like virtual worlds. The idea, presumably, was that it wanted to be ready to move in case any of these areas took off. Instead, the company is now finding itself facing resistance to just about everything it does.