THE European Union charged Google yesterday with abusing its overwhelming dominance in internet searches and opened a probe into its Android mobile system, massively raising the stakes in a five-year anti-monopoly battle.

The move could lead to billions of pounds in fines for Google if the case demonstrates that the way it does business in the EU is illegal.

The bloc can impose fines of 10 per cent of annual revenue — amounting to over £4 billion — and force the firm to overhaul its system of recommending websites in Europe.

The European Commission said it had found that Google “gives systematic favourable treatment” to Google Shopping at the expense of others in its general search results.

Competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Google’s online hegemony — 90 per cent of internet searches in the EU use the site, compared with 70 per cent in the US — meant that such biases towards its own offshoots were unfair.