In its quarterly regulatory filing with the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this week, Internet search giant Google revealed that regulators in Argentina and South Korea had initiated investigations into "certain business practices" at the company.

Google's disclosure of the opening of the investigations by Argentina's Competition Commission and South Korea's Fair Trade Commission is a clear indication of the intensified worldwide scrutiny of the Internet firm's competitive behavior as well as collection of users' personal information.

According to the details shared by a Google spokesperson, the company has received a notification from Argentina's antitrust agency that a preliminary probe is being conducted by the agency into Google's "search and search advertising services."

In a statement pertaining to the investigations into Google's business practices, Argentina's Competition Commission said that the probe against Google has been initiated essentially to ascertain whether the company has a leading position in its respective markets which could have any notable bearing on Argentina.

Meanwhile, as per the Google spokesperson, the investigations in South Korea are largely a part of the "ongoing inquiry" which commenced in 2011, when the country's police raided a local Google office to probe the mechanism the company was using for collecting location data about users via mobile phone advertising.

The spokesperson also added that Google was happy to respond to the queries being put to it during the course of the investigations, and that the company continued to "cooperate with regulators."