The European Commission has launched an investigation into the Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iBookstore. They are checking to see whether Apple and a group of international publishers are fixing e-book prices. They are checking to see if Apple and the book publishers are violating antitrust rules. The 5 publishers include Livre, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin, and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck.

The New York Times is reporting a positive story about e-book sales. HarperCollins reported that 25% of all young-adult book sale were e-books. This is up from 6% a year earlier.

Gawker.com has taken down leaked excerpts from Sarah Palin’s unreleased and upcoming book “America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag” from their website after being hit by a lawsuit by HarperCollins. The injunction prohibits Gawker from “continuing to distribute, publish or otherwise transmit pages from the book.” There is a hearing expected on November 30th as well. The blog post that had the leaked excerpt now leads to a 404 error message. [AllThingsD]

HarperCollins Publishers has announced that they are delaying their ebook publications. The HarperCollins e-books will start in January or February 2010.

“We’re going to experiment with this. Each new e-book represents a potential new marketing opportunity at a time when we need every possible hook to get consumer attention” stated HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray.