Apple Sales International, Apple Italia Srl and Apple Retail Italia were fined a total of 900,000 Euros, or about $1.2 million, by Italy’s Antitrust Authority for misleading customers about its tech support polices.  Officials said that the three divisions failed to notify customers they deserve two years of support according to EU laws, and instead provided them with the one year warranty Apple guarantees. This allegedly led to many unnecessary AppleCare subscriptions, which extends that one year warranty for a period that overlaps with the time the EU code specifies.

WSJ reported some of the details:

“Apple Sales International, Apple Italia Srl and Apple Retail Italia were fined after the Antitrust Authority received complaints from consumer groups about ‘unfair commercial practices,'” said the regulator, according to a Wall Street Journal report.  “The company received a €400,000 fine for not giving customers adequate information about the length of product guarantees, the regulator said. It received a €500,000 fine for not providing complete information about the AppleCare Protection Plan.”

Apple has had its fair share of legal clashes this year. The company released an update to iOS after U.K researchers published the little known fact that iDevices used to store users’ location data in an unencrypted format locally – that is, until a patch update was released. The electronics giant has been involved in a number of private lawsuits as well.

Apple got involved in a legal battle with Motorola in Europe for allegedly infringing two patents, which the latter ended up winning.  Apple will be paying the now Google-own competitor a sum in the 100 million Euro range.

On a different front against Android, Apple got a victory after the ITC found that several HTC handsets are infringing Apple patents. The manufacturer has been ordered to halt the shipment of those devices until April 2012.