Google’s Seoul office raided by police

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More overseas ripples from the Wi-Fi spying mess: Google Inc.’s Seoul office was raided by South Korean police who said they suspect the Internet giant of illegally collecting and storing data on users.

Officials confiscated computers and hard drives as they look into whether Google violated the country’s privacy and communications laws.

Google, already facing a 37-state probe in the U.S., an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission and other investigations overseas, had been planning on rolling out its “Street View” service in South Korea, which is one of Asia’s most wired countries. Last May, the company began dispatching cars to roam South Korea to photograph neighborhoods for the mapping service.

Google has said that it inadvertently collected data from unsecured wireless networks while taking photos of city streets and has apologized. It maintains that it has done nothing illegal. Raids are not uncommon in South Korea and do not necessarily mean that Google will face charges.

‘We can confirm that the police have visited Google Korea in conjunction with their investigation around data collection by Street View cars,’ a Google spokeswoman said in an e-mail. ‘We will cooperate with the investigation and answer any questions they have.’

-- Jessica Guynn