European Union antitrust regulators have expanded the scope of the investigation into Google’s Alphabet digital advertising business, taking over the Portuguese competition watchdog’s lawsuit over the same issue.

While the European Commission started its investigation in June 2021, the Portuguese Competition Authority (AdC) only opened an investigation in May this year.

The Portuguese watchdog said the EU competition authority took over its case on 27 July, given the scope and impact of the matter at hand.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The AdC said its investigation focused on the market for ad servers, which allow publishers to manage advertising space on their websites and sell them through auctions or agreements with advertisers.

“There are indications that Google used information not accessible to competitors in online ad auctions to alter the outcome in its favor and possibly limit the emergence of competing technologies, among other restrictive competitive behavior,” AdC said.

Google earned $147 billion in online ad revenue in 2020, more than any other company in the world, with ads including search, YouTube and Gmail accounting for the majority of its sales.