South Korean police have raided the Seoul offices of Google as part of a probe into its Street View mapping service.

According to a police official, a cyber crime unit is investigating Google Korea for possibly violating communications and privacy laws.

Detectives confiscated computers and hard drives for analysis, while company officials are due to be summoned.

Google's suspected offences relate to the firm's gathering of street level photographs ahead of its launch of Street View in South Korea.

"(The police) have been investigating Google Korea LLC on suspicion of unauthorised collection and storage of data on unspecified internet users from wi-fi networks," the Korean National Police Agency said.

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