Google and EU regulators are said to be close to settling an antitrust investigation into the company's suspected anti-competitive behaviour, Reuters reported today. The news agency cited a senior European Union official to report that Google's latest proposal to settle antitrust concerns was " much better" than the previous two, which had been rejected.

Google, which could face a possible fine of as much as $5 billion, had been asked for commitments on how it treated rivals in search results and how it used content from other providers in future.

The Federal Trade Commission in January last year ended a similar investigation on Google's practices.