Instead of facing one European investigation into its privacy policy, Google now has to contend with at least six of them.

Data protection agencies in Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands said on Tuesday that they were moving to take action against Google over the policy, which the company introduced last year. They joined the French regulator, which had initiated a European Union inquiry on behalf of its counterparts across the 27-nation bloc.

While the regulators have repeatedly threatened the company with tough talk of a united front, the news on Tuesday reflects the reality that privacy laws are fragmented across the European Union, giving Google little incentive to yield.

Enforcement is a matter for national agencies, rather than Brussels. But the French data protection agency, which is known by the initials C.N.I.L., said it would cooperate with the other countries as they step up their scrutiny.