Google could be fined £4.4bn as Brussels signals legal challenge in offing

Margrethe Vestager, European competition commissioner, appears to be taking forward complaints of 30 online firms that Google is harming their businesses

Google could face a fine of up to $6.6bn (4.4bn) after the European Commission began to update its evidence against the search engine - signalling that Brussels has decided to launch a full-blown legal challenge into its dominance.

The newly installed competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, whose political career inspired the blockbuster television series Borgen in her native Denmark, has begun updating evidence against Google and weighing whether to ramp up Europe's five-year probe into Google's search practices by releasing a new statement of objections.