The US Department of Justice is probing a proposed settlement between Google Inc and authors of books the company wants to put online.

Online search and advertising giant Google made the settlement with book publishers' representatives and associations of authors such as Association of American Publishers and Authors Guild. Critics of the deal want it to be scrapped on antitrust grounds, since Google will be making money from the books it puts into service.

They claim that Google's scanning of copyrighted books in various libraries to allow readers to search through millions of books fall foul of copyright laws.

The case is however from being black and white; there are several grey areas, besides Google has also worked to protect and promote many old and out-of-print works to make them available to millions of people. These people would never have able to read them before. Many university authorities have been working with Google on digitising their collections viewing the alliance as a necessity in the larger intellectual interest.

Although the noble intentions that Google professes for its initiative may largely be taken with a pinch of salt, some libraries like University of California at Berkeley have also joined the Hathi Trust that has similar objectives. According to one university spokesman libraries think in centuries, while private businesses come and go.

According to media reports lawyers from the US government have looked into the settlement after talking to Google and the naysayers.

Meanwhile, Google has said it would pay $125 million towards a fund to pay authors and publishers.

A New York judge recently recently delayed the deadline to 5 May for authors to tell Google if they wanted to opt out.

Controversy over the book search deal flared up with the publication of an article in the New York Review of Books by Harvard professor Robert Darnton that claimed that the deal would lead to monopoly in information access. The claim was disputed in a response by Paul Courant, dean of libraries at the University of Michigan who dismissed the criticism as a ''dystopian fantasy''.

The university is a partner in the Google venture.

According to Google the deal has been so structured as not to be exclusive to the company and other groups could choose to scan books as well. The company also says it would make millions of out-of-print books available again.

This is the second time an antitrust inquiry has involved Google. Last summer, the company had to abandon a search advertising deal with rival Yahoo under threat of antitrust lawsuit by the Justice department.