The European Union is preparing to carry out a wide-ranging probe into US tech companies such as Amazon and Google, reports the Financial Times. This "comprehensive assessment" is part of a draft plan to establish the EU's single digital market — a unified set of regulations for the digital world, that would cover everything from streaming services to telecoms. While the FT reports that a probe into US companies is currently part of this plan, the draft itself has yet to be approved by the European Commission, which will examine the proposals next week.

While this probe would be separate to the antitrust investigation leveled at Google earlier this month, it appears to cover similar ground —  including, for example, an investigation into how companies list search results, including the place of paid-for links and ads. New topics of inquiry include examining how US companies handle customer data, and the ease with which they let users switch services.