Google, Regulators | featured news

Regulators in Google's largest European markets are taking joint action to try and force the company to overhaul its privacy policy.

U.S. regulators on Thursday closed a long-running investigation of Google with a relatively mild agreement that is likely to disappoint rivals and critics of the Web search giant. Under the agreement, Google agreed to end the practice of "scraping" reviews and other data from rivals' websites for its own products, and to allow advertisers to export data to independently evaluate advertising campaigns, the Federal Trade Commission said.

Google Inc will pay $500 million to settle government charges that it showed ads for pharmacies that operate illegally, regulators are expected to announce on Wednesday, according to a report in the New York Times.

U.S. and European regulators have cleared the long-discussed Internet search partnership between Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc., enabling the rivals to form a tag team as they try to mount a more serious challenge to Google Inc....