BERLIN — Google defused a confrontation with European privacy regulators by announcing on Tuesday that it would give the owners of Wi-Fi routers worldwide the option of removing their devices from a registry Google uses to locate cellphone users.

The change was made less than four months after European regulators warned that the unauthorized use of data sent by Wi-Fi routers violated European law. Google and other companies use the signals from Wi-Fi routers as navigational beacons, helping them pinpoint the locations of nearby cellphone users.

Google’s concession, while motivated by strict European privacy laws, will have an effect beyond the Continent because Google plans to offer the option worldwide, including in the United States.

In a blog post, Peter Fleischer, the Google global privacy counsel, said the Wi-Fi signals that the company used did not identify people.