In what is the latest in a controversy that erupted last week, Germany’s Foreign Minister warned Google co-founder Larry Page yesterday to “respect the nation’s data protection laws.”  This after German prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into Google on Wednesday.

Sound a little harsh?  Let’s back up a bit.  Last week Google admitted to inadvertently collecting private data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks.  The data was collected by the Google Street View cars that, in addition to taking the photos that get uploaded to the Street View feature on Google Maps, were also intercepting Wi-Fi signals.  These signals were intercepted with the intention of cataloging them for geo-targeting purposes.

Google has acknowledged the privacy breach and apologized.  In a blog post, Google’s Senior VP of Engineering & Research, Alan Eustace, announced that they grounded all Street View cars, segregated the data collected from them and are working with government regulators to delete it. Google also decided to stop collecting Wi-Fi network data and will introduce a new option that will allow users to encrypt Google searches for more secure connections.

At a conference on Wednesday, Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, said, “We screwed up…Trust is very important to us, and we’re doing everything we can to preserve it.”

The Street View feature was already controversial in Germany and other countries in that privacy groups felt that people could be seen doing things they didn’t want to be seen doing in the Street View photographs…and that was before Google admitted to the privacy breach.  While it sounds as though Google is doing everything it can to restore its trust in the eyes of its European users, they may have a bit of an uphill battle on their hands.