Lawyers at the US Federal Trade Commission are set to advise the government try to block Google's proposed acquisition of mobile advertising firm AdMob on antitrust grounds.

According to Reuters the lawyers believe there is a significant competitive problem and they are prepared to make a recommendation to sue. Lawyers at the FTC could still change their opinion as negotiations with Google progress so the leak is probably an attempt to scare the beJesuz out of the search outfit. Google currently faces a growing list of investigations in the United States and Europe on issues of competitiveness.

The Wall Street Journal was the first to report that the FTC has assembled an internal litigation team to prepare for a possible effort to challenge Google's AdMob deal and that it had briefed Congress about its concerns about the deal. Any recommendation by the FTC staff to sue would still have to go through several more steps. But regulators have been reviewing Google's $750 million deal to acquire AdMob for months.

In February, European regulators said they were looking into complaints from three companies, one owned by Google rival Microsoft about Google's search ranking practices.