Google has confirmed in a regulatory filing that the Federal Trade Commission means to investigate its search and advertising business for abusing its dominance like the European Commission is doing.

It got the subpoena last Thursday, the day the Wall Street Journal reported that the shoe was about to drop. Subpoenas to competitors and customers will follow.

Observers like the Journal immediately drew comparisons to what happened to Microsoft and suggested that Google could be defending itself for years, condemned to distraction while facing a nemesis like Facebook.

Gary Reback, the lawyer Microsoft's enemies used to draw up an indictment against Microsoft, is quoted as saying, "It is almost exactly the same case."

Google rejects the comparison. Sounding like Microsoft, however, Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt told the Financial Times Google doesn't know what the complaint is other than that it comes from competitors and is "largely without merit."

In a blog Google wrote that there are other choices. But these alternatives claim Google makes them hard to find and blocks their ads, thrusting its own properties to the head of the line and rigging ad prices.

The Journal remarked that Google stock, already depressed, lost $4 billion in value on the news.

Microsoft of course is tickled pink.