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In the wake of Google's allegedly accidental harvesting of personal information by its Google Street View vehicles, Germany required that company to turn over an accounting of what information was snatched. Sensitized by that event, Germany is now requiring Apple to do the same thing.

German news magazine Der Spiegel quotes German Federal Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger as saying Apple should "immediately disclose" what information they gather, how long it is kept and what it is used for.

A growing startup trend that we have been keeping a watchful eye on here at ReadWriteStart is mass customization and co-creation. Startups in this sector provide customizable products to the end user, like t-shirts, bags, jewelry and even food. Back in March we suggested that the U.S. may be on the verge of a co-creation invasion from Europe, where these kinds of startups are more prominent. This week the Smart Customization Seminar is being held at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts and some fascinating stats and trends have emerged from the discussions and talks.

Last week we talked about managing split teams with Danny Wong of Blank Label, a site for creating custom men's dress shirts and a startup in the growing field of co-creation. These types of startups, which have gained more traction overseas than in the U.S., run on a model of on-demand production, which allows them to become cash-flow positive in a relatively short period of time. Wednesday I had the chance to talk about co-creation with Carmen Magar, a German woman living in New York who works for chocri, a German startup that sells customizable chocolates.

According to German law, Germany's ISPs and phone services had to retain data about every citizen's phone calls and emails for six months. Today, however, Germany's Federal Constitution Court suspended this law and ordered that all the data stored to date must be deleted immediately. According to German news magazine Der Spiegel, the court said that it wasn't sufficiently clear that the data storage was secure enough and what exactly the data would be used for.

While Twitter's growth has slowed down in recent months, new data shows that the popular microblogging service has found a lot of new users outside of the United States. According to new data from social media analytics and monitoring firm Sysomos, the U.S. now accounts for about 50% of all active Twitter users. This is down sharply from 62% in June 2009. The share of Twitter users from Brazil, Indonesia and Germany, however, has grown significantly over the last six months.

On Saturday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel used her weekly video podcast to attack Google and the Google Book Settlement. According to Merkel, the Google Book Settlement disregards international copyright laws. Merkel, who mostly focuses on the upcoming Frankfurt Book Fair in her rather anemic video, also stressed that Germany will do its best to protect German authors against what the government considers to be blatant copyright infringement. Both Germany and France filed complaints against the Google Book settlement last month.

A few days ago, we got a chance to talk about the state of blogging and social media in Germany with Marcel Weiß, the editor of Netzwertig.com - one of Germany's most popular blogs. In the interview, Weiß told us that Germany is at least five years behind the U.S. when it comes to social media and its adoption by a larger part of society. Blogs are still considered to be suspect by a large part of the German public and have very little influence, and social news sites and aggregators attract very little attention. With regards to Germany's Internet startup scene, Weiß argues that, with very few exceptions, most companies are also years behind the U.S. and just aren't innovative enough to compete.