The shoe that's been dangling at the end of Washington's toe for ever so long has finally dropped, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Federal Trade Commission is reportedly ready to serve Google with civil subpoenas, kicking off what the paper says will be a "wide-ranging, formal antitrust investigation into whether the search giant has abused its dominance on the web."

Google should get served with demands for information in days. Competitors and customers will get theirs later.

The Journal says the investigation will focus on "fundamental issues relating to Google's core search advertising business," which of course is responsible for the bulk of its revenue. The FTC wants to know if Google "unfairly channels users to its own growing network of services at the expense of rivals."

Google is being investigated for the same thing in Europe. The European Commission opened its investigation in November after getting complaints from a rival Microsoft subsidiary in Germany among others.