Joaquín Almunia, the European commissioner for competition, will spend the coming weeks reflecting on how best to conclude the European Commission’s long-running antitrust investigation into whether Google is abusing its near-monopoly in the internet search market.

The Commission has received feedback from Google’s competitors on a settlement offer made by the US firm aimed at avoiding a fine for alleged breach of a dominant position.

Almunia must now decide whether to accept the remedies offered by Google, ask the company to make further concessions, or make formal charges.

The commissioner told MEPs on 26 November that the Commission would decide on next steps in the “coming months”. He had earlier told MEPs that a decision could be adopted by spring 2014. The Commission has been formally investigating Google since 2010.

The Commission has expressed concerns that the firm may be abusing its dominant position in the search-engine market (it has a market share in the EU of 90%) by giving favourable exposure to links and adverts for its own services and by using the content of rival websites. Complaints that Google manipulated its search results have been dismissed.

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In an attempt to settle the case and avoid a fine, which could be as high as €3.6 billion, Google came up with settlement offer in April. A second offer was made in October.

Under the latter proposal, Google would allow rival websites to place links and advertisements in prominent positions on its search results pages.

It would also make it easier for websites to prevent Google from using certain content and for advertisers to switch between Google and rival advertising servers.

Thomas Vinje, an antitrust lawyer at Clifford Chance who is representing Fairsearch, a group of complainants in the case, last week described the proposal as “extraordarily ineffective”.

Regardless of Almunia’s decision, Google will continue to be a headache for the Commission. Complainants are likely to appeal against any settlement deal, while charging Google would likely lead to lengthy court proceedings.

In May, Almunia charged a Google subsidiary, Motorola Mobility, with harming competition by abusing the mobile phone standardisation process.

The Commission is also investigating whether Google has broken antitrust rules by giving away the Android operating system, its smartphone software, free of charge.