Google is now facing probes in Spain, France, Italy and the Czech Republic for possible violation of privacy laws after coming under scrutiny by German investigators for the data-gathering practices of its Street View mapping service.

The news comes just days after the internet giant had to erase data it had collected from Irish wi-fi networks while making street maps.

Spain's Data Protection Authority last week ordered an investigation of whether Google, owner of the world's biggest search engine, breached national privacy rules by collecting and storing data from wi-fi networks. France, Italy and the Czech Republic said they were also investigating.

"For the time being the greatest damage is to public relations rather than to Google's business model or ability to operate in some fundamental way across Europe," Greg Sterling, an analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence in San Francisco, said in an email.

Street View allows Google users to click on maps to see photographs of roadsides.

Google said last week that it deleted data mistakenly gathered from wi-fi networks in Ireland and was aiming to do the same in other countries.

Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder, said the company had "screwed up" by collecting information from wi-fi networks while gathering data for Street View. He was responding to government probes of his company's privacy practices.

Google is adding to its internal controls after it mistakenly captured the data, said Brin.

Officials from 30 European countries on 11 May adopted a common approach to keep Google from infringing privacy rights as the service is rolled out in Europe.

They said they wanted Google to improve blurring techniques used to disguise images and to make faces and license plates harder to recognize. (Bloomberg)

Neopolitan Counterfeiting Ring Busted Across Europe

European Union police forces broke up a counterfeiting ring run by the Naples mafia that specialised in importing and distributing fake Chinese-made iPhones, Italy's finance police said last week.

Europol is coordinating arrests in 11 countries, including Italy, where nine people are sought, the police said in an emailed statement. The EU investigative arm, Eurojust, began the probe last year. "Countless" counterfeit products have been discovered.

The probe revealed "an international criminal organisation based in Naples and dedicated to importing and selling products counterfeited in China", the police said. The ring sold copies of Apple's iPhone and products falsely branded as made by Bosch, Honda and Hitachi.

The products were re-labelled in Naples after being shipped from China and many were sold door-to-door, police said.

Italian police dubbed the operation "Gomorrah" after Roberto Saviano's book of the same name that refers to Naples' Camorra mafia.

Arrests tied to the counterfeiting ring were also being carried out in Denmark, France, Germany, Poland, the UK, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Hungary, Italian police said.

In Italy, police seized cash and real estate valued at €10m.

The profit margins for the smugglers were huge, finance police said. An electric generator bought for €80 from China retailed at €1,200. (Bloomberg)

Microsoft Set For Summer Relaunch of Hotmail

Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, is upgrading Hotmail to make it easier to manage the flow of photos, videos and social-networking updates to a user's inbox.

The new version, scheduled to be released in July or August, is designed to allow easier document sharing and provide a quick view of photos and videos at the top of emails.

The upgrade also helps users easily send photos, videos and other media, along with web links, to their contacts.

Microsoft, which sells ads next to Hotmail inboxes, is updating the service to attract users from rivals such as Yahoo! and Google. While Hotmail is the leading email service worldwide, it's second in the US behind Yahoo Mail, according to ComScore. Google's Gmail, the fastest-growing of the leaders, was third.

"This update, I think, is the most significant one we've ever done," said Chris Jones, a corporate vice president at Microsoft. "We are already second. We hope this is a product that can take us to first."

With the Hotmail upgrade, users can quickly see whether they have emails from friends and social networks, along with messages about package shipments or appointments, without sorting through the inbox. Another feature, called 'sweep', lets users clean out or move a block of similar emails with a few clicks of the mouse.

"They're taking it more seriously and really trying to make it competitive," said Matt Rosoff, a technology anlyst with Microsoft.

He said some of the new features close the gap with Gmail's offerings. "I think it's a really good service now." (Bloomberg)