It should soon become much easier for people in Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain to find the best deals online.  Google indicated today that it’s moving towards launching Google Product Search/Google Shopping in those countries, opening the Google Merchant Center as a preliminary step.

The Google Merchant Center is in large part what makes Google Product Search work; it’s a site that allows businesses to submit data product feeds, ensuring that users see up to date information.

An antitrust probe that began way back in August of 2008 has at last concluded, and the outcome tends to favor Google.  Italian authorities have decided not fine the company or subject it to any additional regulation.

Google Books has done it again.  Despite heavy opposition to its book-scanning project, another deal’s been established, and this time, the agreement involves the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage (along with the National Libraries of Florence and Rome).

About 62 million people should now find it rather easier (or perhaps, for the first time, possible) to use Twitter.  Last night, Twitter acknowledged the world’s Italian-speaking population by announcing support for the Italian language.

Twitter first moved beyond English by launching in Japanese in April of 2008.  More recently, it’s added support for Spanish and French.  Obviously, every time Twitter does something along these lines, it allows for the possibility of adding a lot more users.

Italian prosecutors have – sort of – tried to put several Google executives (and the company’s former CFO) in jail.  The prosecutors requested sentences ranging from six months to one year in connection with a case that involved a YouTube video and a disabled boy.

Google received a piece of bad news – and perhaps a laugh – today as we prepare to go into the long weekend.  Here’s the serious part: Italian antitrust regulators have decided to expand the focus of an investigation from the Italian version of Google News to the entire corporation.

An overseas branch of Google News may be about to get its parent unit in a lot of trouble.  Italian antitrust regulators are investigating claims that newspapers were more or less forced to contribute to the site, and certain tactics and potential penalties suggest the situation is very serious.

In September of 2006, a clip of four Italian youths teasing a teenager with Down syndrome was uploaded to Google Video.  Today, the trial of four Google executives on criminal charges of defamation and privacy violations is set to begin in Milan.