Brin's remarks came as two US lawmakers asked regulators whether the Internet giant had broken the law by capturing personal wireless data, while Italian and German authorities said they were looking into the matter.

Google said last week that Street View cars cruising and taking photographs of cities in over 30 countries had inadvertently gathered fragments of personal data sent over unsecured Wi-Fi systems.

"We screwed up," Brin told reporters here on the opening day of a Google conference for software developers. "I'm not going to make any excuses about it."

Brin said Google has "a lot of internal controls in place," although acknowledging that "obviously, they didn't prevent this error from occurring."

He said the Mountain View, California-based company was "putting more internal controls in place."

"Trust is very important to us and we are going to do everything we can to preserve this trust," Brin said.

Meanwhile, Representative Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and Republican Representative Joe Barton of Texas sent a letter to the chairman of the US Federal Trade Commission, Jon Leibowitz. They asked for a response by June 2.

In their letter, the two members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce asked whether Google's Wi-Fi data collection practices "violate the public's reasonable expectation of privacy."

"Do Google's actions form the basis of an unfair or deceptive act or practices that constitutes harm to consumers?" they asked. "Are Google's actions illegal under Federal law?"

Consumer Watchdog, a US consumer advocacy group that often criticizes Google, called on the FTC last week to launch a probe into the collection of private Wi-Fi information by Street View cars, calling the practice a "flagrant intrusion into consumers' privacy."

Italy's privacy regulator said it has opened an investigation into Google "to ascertain whether the treatment of private data in the Street View service was lawful and fair."

In Germany, prosecutors said they had launched a probe into Google on suspicion of computer crime following a lawyer's complaint against the firm's German subsidiary.

"It is not yet clear whether a specific crime has been committed," said a spokesman for the prosecutor's office in the northern city of Hamburg.

Illegal interception of data is punishable in Germany with a fine or up to two years in prison under a law that entered the books in 2007.

Street View allows users to view panoramic street scenes on Google Maps and "walk" through cities such as New York, Paris or Hong Kong.

earlier related report
German prosecutors probe Google over Street View
Hamburg, Germany (AFP) May 19, 2010 - German prosecutors said Wednesday they had launched a probe into Google after the firm admitted to mistakenly gathering personal data with its controversial "Street View" mapping service.

A spokesman for the prosecutor's office in the northern city of Hamburg said it had launched an investigation into the Internet giant on suspicion of computer crime following a lawyer's complaint against its German subsidiary.

"It is not yet clear whether a specific crime has been committed," the spokesman told AFP.

Illegal interception of data is punishable in Germany with a fine or up to two years in prison under a law that entered the books in 2007.

Google said last week that it was halting the collection of WiFi network information for Street View after admitting it inadvertently gathered personal data sent via unsecured systems.

It had insisted previously that it was only collecting WiFi network names and addresses with the Street View cars that have been cruising cities in more than 30 countries taking photographs for the Google Maps service.

German authorities have been among the chief critics of Google for its collection of WiFi network information by Street View, which began in 2006.

The service allows users to view panoramic street scenes on Google Maps and "walk" through cities such as New York, Paris or Hong Kong.

German consumer affairs minister Ilse Aigner slammed the company's practices again this week, accusing it of logging into private online networks.

Last month, Aigner and Google reached an accord under which the company would only provide Street View images from Germany after it had addressed thorny privacy concerns.

Germany is especially sensitive to privacy issues due to grievous abuses by the Nazis and East German communists in the past.

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