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Google faces problems related to privacy and copyright protection in Europe. Google's most immediate challenges may be in Italy. This month a decision is expected in a trial in Milan, where four Google executives have been charged with defamation and privacy violations in a case involving videos posted on a Google Web site showing the bullying of an autistic boy.Italian prosecutors accuse Google of negligence, saying it was too slow to remove the video. But Google sees a political dimension. One of the four executives, Peter Fleischer, Google's chief privacy counsel, called the case part of "an attack on a decade of progress" for Internet companies in Italy. In Germany, German publishers have persuaded the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel to support a new kind of copyright protecting journalistic content on the Web. Analysts say the measure, which has not yet been introduced, could require Web companies like Google to buy special licenses to cite content published elsewhere.

Google will have users who have already started Buzz confirm their privacy options in wake of the privacy kerfuffle.

Google's entry into the social networking space will face similar privacy challenges as Facebook and other social networking sites. Here are some facts about Buzz privacy for users to keep in mind.

Facebook changes policy on privacy settings. Wants to be more open like Twitter. Raises privacy concerns.

Fending criticisms from multiple parties, Google once again made the case for digitizing millions of orphaned books before the U.S. District Court Southern District Court of New York, in a fairness hearing held Thursday. A total of 27 different parties requested to speak before the court. Five were in favor, including Sony, the National Federation of the Blind and the Center for Democracy and Technology. The rest -- 22 in total -- opposed the settlement, including Amazon, Microsoft, the Open Book Alliance, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Those in favor praised the idea of rendering hard-to-find books in electronic form, because they could be accessible to a much larger group of readers, and not be lost to the ages. The objectors, however, voiced strong concerns that the settlement case preempts U.S. copyright law altogether. Others voiced privacy and antitrust concerns.

Facebook is denying it illegally breached the privacy of its users in a proposed $9.5 million settlement to a class action challenging its program that monitored and published what users of the social-networking site were buying or renting from Blockbuster, Overstock and other locations.

But the last thing savvy tech companies want is for a product to end up as a frequent mention in #fail on Twitter. Yet that is exactly where Google Buzz was frequently mentioned, just hours after many consumers started to play with the new tool. One of the complaints was that Buzz seemed to have a mind of its own, picking names in your email inbox , and selecting them randomly for you to follow in your "Buzz" network. "Thanks Google Buzz, I'm automatically following 3 ex-girlfriends. #fail," wrote Tony Pitluga of Pittsburgh in a tweet that was widely re-tweeted last week. Another problem users discovered is that Google makes public everything you do in Buzz in its search engine, unless you set the privacy settings ahead of time.

ROME - Three Google executives were convicted of violating Italian privacy laws on Wednesday, the first case to hold the company's executives criminally responsible for the content posted on its system. Enlarge This Image Paolo Bona/Reuters Bill Echikson, a spokesman for Google, called a judge's ruling against executives "astonishing." Related New Complaints Filed Against Google in Europe (February 25, 2010) Times Topics: Google Inc. The verdict, though subject to appeal, could have sweeping implications worldwide for Internet freedom: It suggests that Google is not simply a tool for its users, as it contends, but is effectively no different from any other media company, like newspapers or television, that provides content and could be regulated.

Google responds to privacy concerns with new social-networking tool Buzz.

Internet companies trying to prevent copyright bill from infringing on privacy.

An Italian case is decided against google, holding the company liable despite their removing the offending content. This challenges current understandings of liability, and raises profound concerns for Internet business models.

"When Google unveiled Buzz, its answer to Facebook and Twitter, on Tuesday, it hoped to get its service off to a fast start by scanning the contact lists of Gmail users and automatically adding the most frequent correspondents as online friends. But what the company viewed as an obvious shortcut stirred up a beehive of angry critics.