A British mapping company named Streetmap is suing Google in U.K. court for what it called "cynical manipulation of search results," that made its site harder to find in Google searches. A Google spokesman told Bloomberg he hadn't seen the Streetmap complaint, and declined to comment further. It's the second such complaint the search service has faced from British courts this year.

The suit comes on the heels of an antitrust probe conducted by the European Union into whether Google is using its Search service to actively promote its other products, spurred by a similar suit from British shopping-comparison site Foundem. EU commissioners have said that ultimate goal of the probe will be to secure "legally binding commitments" that their search results are unbiased. A similar probe in the U.S. found no evidence the company's actions were harmful to consumers.