Last week, we highlighted how some of the big web/digital guns (Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Zynga) had banded together to oppose California’s proposed bill (the second of the state’s proposed privacy bills) that would require such companies to have users set up their privacy settings upon registration, and default such settings to private. Well, now large and small alike have aligned, with a number of startups (including Oodle, as you might have guessed from the image accompanying today’s post) joining the big boys in their fight against the proposed legislation… [paidcontent.org]

Speaking of Facebook (a mention counts), while this doesn’t have direct privacy implications at the moment, we’re more than sure it is relevant to the privacy discussion when we note that apparently The Social Network is recruiting a team of diplomats to handle government relations in a number of different regions globally… [San Jose Mercury News]

Nothing like voicing concern at the 11th hour…apparently over in Europe, the EU is set to put a 2009 privacy bill into action today that would require users’ consent in order for websites/companies to set cookies in their browsers, but yesterday a number of concerned parties expressed that they are unsure of how the law will be applied across the 27 EU nations… [Bloomberg]

And the privacy beat goes on…

So, perhaps you remember that despite the lack of any formal legislation mandating it, Mozilla, Microsoft and Apple have each implemented a “Do Not Track” feature in the latest versions of their respective browsers (Mozilla even just integrated the option into its Firefox Android browser as well). But one glaringly absent player in the browser game is obviously Google, as the company has yet to, nor may it have any plans to, integrate such a feature into its Chrome browser…apparently because of a lack of clarity around what is “tracking” on the web… [paidcontent.org]

But just because browsers have taken preemptive remedial measures doesn’t mean the rest of the appropriate players are doing the same. According to the firm Evidon, which provides icon technology that allows users to know when they’re being “tracked” and gives them the ability to opt out, only about 10% of advertisers have currently implemented the icon… [WSJ]

And while we’re pointing to a Wall Street Journal story about privacy, as you probably know the Journal has been hot on the digital privacy tip for a while now, taking a pretty firm and transparent perspective that not everyone is in love with… [paidcontent.org]

Obviously there are several bills currently under consideration in Congress regarding digital privacy, perhaps the most noted of which is John Kerry and John McCain’s “Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights,” but what would this piece of legislation really mean for us users? [EFF Deeplinks Blog]

Finally, despite the fact that its currently against “the law,” Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg firmly believes that children under 13 should be able to join Facebook…not surprising, but not for the reason you might think…he actually thinks Facebook has good educational potential…an interesting idea, indeed… [Fortune]

Well, Google is mad as hell…er, at least not gonna take it anymore…”it” being Switzerland’s supreme court ruling that requires the company to blur images of people in Google Street View. The company apparently threatened to “wipe” all photos of Swiss people from Street View entirely if Switzerland’s court did not overturn the decision…and away we go! [AP]

But of course, that’s not all for Google today. Apparently, the Justice Department is also investigating Google Advertising for some type of undisclosed violation that may or may not relate to privacy… [NY Times]

And because we can’t go a week without someone somewhere in the US suing Apple – another suit was filed against the company, as well as Pandora Media and The Weather Channel, alleging that those companies apps have/had been sharing users’ location information with 3rd party ad networks without those users’ consent… [CNET]

Interestingly, while Congress seemed to have taken such umbrage with Apple and Google’s practice of collecting iOS and Android device users locations, apparently the Justice Department has nothing bad to say about the practice…in fact, it wants Congress to introduce a bill that would require mobile providers to collect such information in order to help it catch criminals… [InformationWeek]

So I feel like we’ve mentioned this a lot here, but there was a time when Facebook apps “leaked” users’ information to app makers. Apparently now, however, that “problem” has been fixed, and it should be business as usual…until the next Facebook privacy “fiasco,” that is… [WSJ]

Nevertheless, we’re not done with Facebook yet today…I’m sure you’ll all be interested to hear about how Facebook apparently hired the PR firm Burson-Marsteller to pitch a story about how Google products (specifically something called “Social Circle”) violate users’ privacy…classy move all around, guys… [Business Insider]

Oh, but there’s more…not about Facebook specifically, but rather, its users. Apparently, according to Consumer Reports’ recently released, “2011 Consumer Reports State of the Net Survey” a third of Facebook users under 18, are actually under 13. But even more interesting (and relevant) is that about one in every five ["active"] US Facebook users uses ZERO privacy controls… [PC World]

And finally, not to keep you hanging too long on how yesterday’s hearing on Apple and Google’s mobile location tracking went – apparently by the end of the three hour hearing, Senator Al Franken, who convened the hearing and has been significantly involved in privacy legislation since becoming head of the Senate’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, remained unconvinced that users’ privacy was “being respected” (in that users don’t have the ability to opt in or [more importantly] out), given the practice… [PC Mag]

It just never seems to end for Google and privacy. Frankly, we could probably dedicate an entire blog to just the web giant and its privacy trials and tribulations. But as for the former – trials – apparently in a case that’s the first of its kind, Spain’s Data Protection Agency is suing Google on behalf of about 90 Spanish citizens who want links to information about them that Google has indexed taken down… [AP]

But it isn’t just Spain that’s less than thrilled with Google lately. Yesterday, we mentioned how The Netherlands was the latest country to take issue with its 2010 Street View chicanery. Today, we want to highlight how on Monday, the FTC “called out” Google for being the only major browser that has yet to adopt “Do Not Track” technology – something Firefox, Internet Explorer, and even Safari have rolled out to users… [ComputerWorld]

And yet, despite all of it, Google apparently is atop the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s new privacy report card, along with Amazon and Twitter… [ZDNet]

Oh, and just to update you on something we mentioned yesterday – Sophos’ open letter to Facebook, and Facebook’s latest privacy improvements – not surprisingly, Sophos was underwhelmed by Facebook’s efforts… [eWeek]

So, I’m not sure this should really shock iPhone owners, if they think about the services/apps their iPhone provides, but it was revealed yesterday that your iPhone tracks your every move, with timestamps, in a “secret” file that gets transferred to your computer’s hard drive when you plug your iPhone in to it… [Guardian]

And one person who was particularly concerned with this revelation apparently was Senator Al Franken, recently tapped to head the Senate’s new Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law, who wrote Apple a letter pointing out the dangers of storing this information on phones unencrypted, and posed a series of corrollary questions for the company… [AdWeek]

Well, it might be easy to overlook something like this as innocuous, and chances are it probably is, but just a few years after Yahoo! said it would only store users’ search data for 90 days, citing privacy issues, it is now saying that it will keep user search data for 18 months…quite the 180, it would seem… [NY Times]

Elsewhere in privacy news about search engine companies – it’s hard to believe that almost a year after Google’s Street View wifi sniffing fiasco, certain countries are just now expressing their displeasure with the incident(s). The latest is The Netherlands, which has apparently “ordered” Google to “contact 3.6 million Dutch WiFi owners and offer them a way to have their data deleted”…eek… [AP]

Not a week goes by when we don’t see someone decrying Facebook for its privacy controls. This week, it’s the UK digital security firm Sophos, which called out three issues in particular it thought Facebook wasn’t doing a good enough job on…those being – 1) privacy controls are opt-in, 2) “lack of vetted app developers,” and 3) having its secure connection (https) turned off by default… [PC Mag]

And it may not have been in direct response to Sophos’ “open letter,” but Facebook actually did address at least one of Sophos’ concerns, now ensuring that even if users engage an app with an unsecure connection, Facebook will switch the user’s connection back to https automatically. It also introduced a couple of other privacy/security features as well, for information on which I direct you to this post… [Facebook]

When Microsoft released its latest version of Internet Explorer – IE9 – one of the biggest new features it offered users was a “Do Not Track” opt-out of ad tracking. Well, it’s not alone in integrating such a feature into the latest version of its browser, as Apple did the same in the recently minted version of its Safari browser… [paidcontent.org]

While it might be encouraging to some that John Kerry and John McCain just introduced a new digital privacy bill recently, it would probably be naive to think that even if it passes, it will mean companies won’t be able to “find” us online…of course, that’s doesn’t really seem to be the point of the new legislation (so much as it is being transparent about what’s being collected, why, and offering the ability to opt out), but I’m just reporting what I read… [CNN]

Oh, and don’t be surprised if you see numerous articles to this effect popping up around the web while the new privacy bill is making its way around congress – “Five Big Problems With The New Privacy Bill of Rights”… [PC World]

Finally, according to a study of 65 Columbia students, the University researchers looking into Facebook privacy controls concluded that those controls are “fundamentally flawed” because the students studied were “either unintentionally sharing information they’d intended not to or unable to share something as desired” and were either “unable to correct” their settings as desired or “had given up trying”… [Chicago Tribune]

At this point, every web, mobile or social service ought to be thinking about privacy and security long and hard given the current climate. And that apparently includes Skype, which privacy watchdog organization, Privacy International, claims is exposing users’ privacy due to a couple of security issues that make it easy to impersonate a Skype user… [TG Daily]

The other day we highlighted how the online marketplace Etsy made an unfortunate mistake, exposing certain sensitive information about users to the public at large. Well, if you’re an Etsy user who wants to hide that “sensitive information,” here are your step-by-step instructions… [Business Insider]

Last week, we also mentioned how the EU has proposed a new privacy regulation that should take effect later in the year that will require all online entities that are accessible by EU users to explicitly obtain users’ permission to be tracked, among other things…and in case there was any confusion, the regulation will apply even to sites/services based outside of the EU that have users in the EU… [WSJ]

And, of course, that includes Facebook, where EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding hinted that EU users should have a “right to be forgotten,” or essentially the right to control what appears on Facebook about/involving them… [paidcontent.org]

Finally, we mentioned on Monday that Microsoft had finally released its latest version of Internet Explorer – IE9 – which brought with it improved privacy controls and the ability to opt out of 3rd party ad tracking. Well, apparently the browser’s new version was downloaded 2.35 million times in just 24 hours… [Mashable]

Well, we mentioned on Friday how last week the Senate sent Facebook yet another letter strongly encouraging it not “to become a digital phonebook” (ie, not to let developers have access to users’ mobile phone numbers and addresses). Following that, Minnesota Senator Al Franken (who was part of the letter writing) also wrote this Huffington Post column to the same effect… [Huffington Post]

But while it might have been appropriate for Franken to do so, given that he was selected to head the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on “Privacy, Technology, and the Law,” West Virginia senator Jay Rockefeller, who we also mentioned last week scheduled a hearing this week on digital privacy is adamant that his Senate Commerce Committee should be the body heading legislative digital privacy efforts… [WSJ]

Most often when we mention specific companies in conjunction with privacy issues, it has been the usual suspects – Google and Facebook. But another major digital US company – Amazon – has found itself in litigation related to privacy as well, for allegedly circumventing the Internet Explorer browser’s privacy controls to collect information about users that it might not otherwise be able to collect… [MediaPost]

But while some people are so worried about others knowing what they do on the web that they would sue a company who collects info on them, there are apparently others who are so unconcerned that they would actively sign up to share their entire browsing history with others through services like Dscover.me, Sitesimon.com and Voyurl.com… [Gizmodo]

As we’ve been following for a while now, there seems to be a real battle brewing on Capitol Hill between Congress and online advertisers/marketers…and the latest related development is that a Florida Congressman wants legislation that would force advertisers to disclose how they are utilizing users’ personal information, and give users the ability to stop those advertisers from using their info (just to take “Do Not Track” one step further)… [Ars Technica]

Finally, if you’re worried about Facebook’s recent decision to give developers access to users’ phone numbers (and addresses), here’s something you might be interested in – “How to Block Facebook Apps with Access to Your Phone Number”… [The Atlantic]

Ok, so, as we mentioned yesterday, and have been following for a little over a month now, Facebook has been planning to allow developers access to users’ addresses and phone numbers. And despite the wealth of public concern that rippled all the way up to Congress, and resulted in Facebook nixing the access after just a few days in January, it’s apparently going to move forward and allow that same access once anew… [paidcontent.org]

And the new version of Internet Explorer (IE9) that we’ve noted recently will have increased user privacy controls, including the ability to opt out of ad/behavioral tracking will apparently be released in a little over a week, on March 14th…or it could be a little over a week after that on March 24th… [Gizmodo]