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BRUSSELS—The European Union is stepping up its probe into allegations that Google abuses its dominance in advertising contracts with website operators and copies content from rival websites, in a further sign that the U.S. search giant's travails with Europe's antitrust regulator are far from over.

The European Commission, the bloc's competition watchdog, has sent out questionnaires to companies requesting more detailed information into Google's business practices in those areas, according to two documents seen by The Wall Street Journal.

The EU has previously flagged its concerns about the practices cited in the questionnaires, which follow a formal complaint in April that charged the company with skewing results to favor its comparison-shopping services.

In one of the questionnaires inquiring about "exclusivity obligations"—whether Google prevents or obstructs website operators from placing ads on their websites that compete with Google's advertising business—the commission asks companies to update responses they made about the issue in 2010 and to provide a copy of all their advertising agreements with Google over the last four years.

A separate questionnaire, investigating the allegations that Google copies or "scrapes" content from rival sites, asks companies to provide more information about whether Google takes content, such as images, from the companies and uses it in its own online services.

News Corp, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, has filed a formal complaint with the commission regarding Google competition practices.

Google and the European Commission weren't immediately available for comment.

Google has until Aug. 31 to respond to the formal charges in the shopping case, after the commission twice extended the deadline. The commission is also investigating the company's conduct with its Android mobile-operating system. The EU's charges could lead to billions of euros in fines and requirements for the company to change its business practices.

In April, when antitrust Commissioner Margrethe Vestager filed the shopping charges against Google, she also said she would continue to investigate concerns over other Google practices. These included allegations that it "scrapes" rivals' web content, that it requires exclusive relationships with Web publishers and that it restricts advertisers' ability to use competing advertising platforms.

The commission's request for updated information about the exclusivity issue suggests that the commission found cause for deeper concern in the previous submissions from complainants and could now be gathering further evidence to file formal charges that would expand on the formal complaint filed in April.

"It is to be welcomed that the commission is having a closer look at the scraping and the exclusivity issues," said Thomas Hö ppner, an attorney at law firm Olswang, which represents Google complainants.

Web publishers "bear all the costs for creating the content while Google reaps the commercial benefits by merely copying and reusing the content in its own service," he added.

In the request for information about exclusivity, the commission also asks the companies to outline any clauses in those agreements that have prevented them from displaying competing search ads and why the company decided to accept such clauses in their agreement with Google.

"Has Google ever conditioned, in writing or in oral discussion, the continuation of its agreements or the terms of its business relationship with you to your displaying only Google search ads on your web pages?" one of the forms asks.

In a questionnaire about scraping of images, companies are asked about whether they can exert control over the use of their images on Google Images "without the need to entirely prohibit their use."

Google this month announced it would separate its search and advertising business from its other ventures and manage them under the holding company Alphabet Inc. The commission has said the changes wouldn't affect its antitrust investigations into the company.

Write to Natalia Drozdiak at natalia.drozdiak@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

August 21, 2015 15:15 ET (19:15 GMT)

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