Google's offer to settle a case which claims it abuses its dominant position in internet searches has been rejected again by the European Union's antitrust body.

The European competition authority said it is "now in contact with Google to see if they are ready to offer solutions" to improve the proposed settlement.

Google and the EU reached a third tentative settlement in February, which was then announced by EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia with much fanfare as a breakthrough in the four-year-old investigation.

But Mr Almunia backtracked in an interview on Monday.

His spokesman, Antoine Colombani, said today that the plaintiffs - Google's competitors - have provided new data on how the latest proposed settlement would be problematic. He added: "We consider that some of them should be taken into consideration."

Competitors in Europe, where Google has an internet search market share of about 90 per cent, have complained about the way the company gives preference to its own Google-branded services at the top of search results pages, especially when consumers are likely to be searching for something to buy.

Google had offered to display search results from competitors more prominently, but in an interview on Monday, Mr Almunia said he is now "trying to extract" better terms.

Google said it will continue to work with the commission to resolve the concerns.

The Google case has become one of the most politically charged competition cases yet. A German EU Commissioner, energy chief Guenther Oettinger, has even called for Google to be broken up to prevent monopolistic market abuse.

Mr Almunia has come under fire for being too soft on Google, but he has insisted a settlement would be preferable for the fast-moving technology sector.

The alternative, the more confrontational approach, could result in lengthy court battles and see the EU imposing a fine of up to 10 per cent of the company's annual revenue if Google was found to be violating EU competition law.

A separate antitrust investigation into Google's Android operating system is still ongoing.

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