With Microsoft now integrating privacy-focused tools into IE9, and generally showing an openness to self-regulation when it comes to privacy, the heat may be on its giant brethren Google (which hasn’t exactly been a paragon of privacy protection) and Apple (which hasn’t been part of the privacy conversation at all so far) to follow suit… [paidcontent.org]

But again, if IE isn’t your browser of choice, and you’re a Firefox user, there are already add-ons you can use to block ad tracking, and here’s the latest add-on in that vein – “Do Not Track Plus,” which implements the “Do Not Track” feature as proposed by the FTC a couple of months back… [PC World]

And as for Apple and privacy, since its browser Safari blocks 3rd party cookies that advertisers typically use to track users, and Safari is the default browser on all of its iOS devices, clicks from paid search advertisements go uncounted about 80% of the time when the click comes from a user on an iOS device (according to a recent study conducted by Marin Software)… [TechCrunch]

A couple of days ago, we mentioned how Senators John McCain and John Kerry were attempting to introduce a digital privacy bill of rights…well, it seems our fearless leader (or at least his administration) supports that concept and effort… [WSJ]

We’ve mentioned the Firefox extension AdBlock Plus in the past, which helps users opt out of online behavior tracking, but here’s another extension that also helps do the same by masking your IP address and storing your browsing history on Cocoon’s own servers instead of on your computer (which sounds like a privacy issue in and of itself, but I suppose if you’re opting for it, whatever) – Cocoon… [Lifehacker]

We pretty much already knew Congress would be tackling the ever popular issue of online privacy this year, and we’ve even already heard that the Commerce Department will be working on assigning US internet users a unique ID. But in case there was any doubt, Senator Patrick Leahy – head of the Judiciary Committee – says online privacy is on his agenda for 2011… [Reuters]

If you’ve been following along at home, you’ll know that the fight against Wikileaks continues – the latest development being the government subpoena’ing Twitter to find out information about certain Wikileaks-supporting users… [International Business Times]

And along those lines – privacy advocates are happy that online privacy has become a hot issue, but they’re not so happy about how they’ve been portrayed in the media… [Forbes]

We’ve mentioned AdBlock Plus – the Firefox extension that allows users to opt out of 3rd party tracking, as well as block ads in general – here before, but it recently merged with(acquired?) AdThwart – a similarly-focused/designed Chrome extension – as well [LifeHacker]

One probably largely overlooked idea (question, really) contained in the Commerce Department‘s recent privacy proposal was whether or not we should continue to allow class action lawsuits based on privacy violations, which has been the primary vehicle for remuneration thus far in terms of digital privacy violations… [Forbes]

Today’s survey says – people aren’t oblivious, and realize they’re being served ads based on their online behavior. It also says that they aren’t pleased with the practice… [WSJ]

And finally, a Japanese woman is suing Google after she found a picture of her underwear hanging outside her apartment when she searched for it on Street View… [Telegraph(UK)]

Head’s up, Chrome users – the popular Firefox extension that helps users opt out of third party ad tracking, AdBlock Plus, should soon be debuting for Chrome… [TechCrunch]

Yesterday, we mentioned that the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a landmark ruling on hosted email privacy recently. Well, that’s not the only landmark privacy victory occuring in the US federal courts this week. Yesterday, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that judges can require authorities to get a warrant in order to access your cell phone location data as well… [Lubbock Avalanche-Journal]

Not entirely privacy related, but there’s certainly privacy elements to this – Facebook just announced yesterday that it will soon be adding a facial recognition feature so that when you upload photos in the future, it will attempt to suggest to you who your friends are for tagging purposes. You can, of course, opt out of this, however… [Facebook Blog]

And finally, you may have heard that Time Magazine named Facebook “brainchild” Mark Zuckerberg its Person of the Year this week. Well, actually, “privacy” may have been a better choice for “Person” of the Year… [Reuters]

In case you’re curious – here’s what blurred-out German homes look like in German Google Street View (above, and more info at link) [CNET]

For those of you worried about the Firefox extension, Firesheep (which ought to be pretty much anyone who ever uses a public wifi network), here’s the anti-Firesheep, Blacksheep, which alerts you when someone on the network to which you are connected is using Firesheep… [Help Net Security]

Did Facebook just open another can of privacy worms when it opened up its Places API to developers? [San Jose Mercury News]

Over the last week, many have wondered whether Congress will continue its efforts to bolster privacy online, and it sounds like there’s nothing to worry about [TheNextWeb]

Good advice for anyone – even if there’s no imminent privacy threat – go through all of the apps you have given permission to access your Facebook and delete any you never use…that way, they can’t mine/sell your data [Consumerist]

If there’s one thing we’ve learned this year as a web culture, I think it might be that all companies offering web/digital products/services need to think about how they would/will handle a user privacy “scandal” [PR Week]

And finally, for you watchful parents, there’s a new guide to Facebook that helps you make sure your child’s privacy protections are what you’d want them to be… [CNET]

So, in an effort to educate/warn other Starbucks internet browsers about Firesheep’s potential to allow others access to users’ personal information, one NYC programmer actually used the Firefox add-on to gather other users’ Facebook login info, which he then used to login to Facebook and send a warning message to those users own Facebook accounts, from their Facebook accounts…did you get all that? [Gizmodo]

The future of online privacy reform may be a little less certain here in the US, given the results of Tuesday’s elections, but in the EU, they’re full steam ahead – pushing for EU citizens’ “right to be forgotten” (IE – regulating how much/what info companies can collect on individual users) [MSNBC and NY Times]

Microsoft‘s latest gaming innovation – Kinect – has a built in camera and microphone…so, is there a potential for Microsoft to “spy” on gamers? I think that’s probably a little reactionary, but nevertheless, there is certainly potential for abuse [AOL]

And finally, you may have caught this already, but Facebook’s response to Congress on its latest privacy “breach” was basically that the reports which prompted Congress to question them were “false” and misunderstood…which actually may be a fair defense… [CNET]

Foursquare and other location-based services are probably the hottest services of 2010 as far as digital goes, but when working with clients, it requires PR (and marketing) professionals to consider privacy [PR Week]

The privacy implications of Facebook‘s recently-announced Relationship pages, which show publicly-shared information and photos that involve two particular Facebook users… [InformationWeek]

Elsewhere on the Facebook privacy front – Facebook disclosed that a 3rd party was paying for user ID information from Facebook developers, but that it had suspended developers who sold such info and presumably will continue to do so to protect users’ privacy [WSJ]

Furthermore, it mentioned that it had come up with a technical solution that would make it impossible to share user IDs with 3rd parties and that it would be working with browser vendors to further make sure user IDs don’t make it into other peoples’ hands… [AFP]

While we’re at it, this isn’t Facebook related, but Facebook’s execs could probably learn a thing or two from reading this post on how to avoid online privacy issues… [GigaOm]

Hopefully none of your were holding your breath waiting for the anti-Facebook, Diaspora’s public alpha release in October, because it’s now been moved back to Thanksgiving [TechCrunch]

For those of you worried about Firesheep – the Firefox add-on that lets users’ access other users’ social networking profiles (and any other sites/services they may be logged into at the moment) through unsecure wireless networks – you probably want to download FireShepherd [Gizmodo]

Just in case you hadn’t already noticed, the government is taking online privacy very seriously lately. So much so that the White House has created a subcommittee to advise it on the issue [Washington Post]

Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that the Electronic Privacy Information Center recently graded the Obama Administration a C in consumer privacy…although it gave the administration a B in cybersecurity [CMIO]

And a somewhat long saga finally ends in North Carolina, as a judge ruled yesterday that Amazon does NOT have to turn over customer records for North Carolina customers who made purchases through Amazon.com between 2003 and 2010 [CNET]

Remember that Firefox extension we mentioned yesterday that allowed anyone to access your social networking presences through insecure wi-fi networks? Apparently it’s been downloaded 104,000 times already, in just 24 hours… [TechCrunch]

And iPhone owners – if you think putting a password on your phone will keep unauthorized users out, you might want to read this… [Wired]

Augmented Reality apps are all fun and games, but have we stopped to think about the privacy implications? Personally, I don’t think having an augmented reality app that shows you where sexual offenders live is an invasion of privacy, considering there is a public registration for those individuals, but I can see where they’re going with this… [GigaOm]

Finally, today in Eric Schmidt-isms – Google’s CEO said in a CNN interview that if people don’t want to be captured by Google Street View, they can just move. Probably not the daftest move, but maybe a little more harmless than it seems… [Search Engine Watch]

So, last week the Wall Street Journal reported on a Facebook privacy ‘breach’ that allowed 3rd party advertiser to see the identity of users who clicked on Facebook ads. This weekend, we learned that it’s not just a problem exclusive to Facebook; Myspace does the same thing… [WSJ]

Of course, being that Myspace and the Journal are both News Corp. owned, it’s awfully funny how the Facebook article was published separately, before the Myspace expose, and how the Myspace article wasn’t published until after the site (Myspace) rolled out its new design… [TechCrunch]

But despite those facts, the Journal maintains that it’s “ridiculous” to say it strategically buried the story… [Forbes]

Elsewhere in privacy coverage, Google admitted that ‘in some instances’ it collected user emails, URLs and computer passwords while conducting its Street View efforts in the UK [Telegraph]

Also, Italy has “ordered” Google to clearly mark its Street View cars, and to publicize schedules of their sweeps of Italian streets in advance [Reuters]

But maybe all the ire directed at Google is at least partially missing its mark – after all, Google obviously exposed how “vulnerable” we are, but that “vulnerability” isn’t necessarily its fault [PC World]

Either way, Google is ready to show that it’s serious about privacy. In addition to the new privacy policy it rolled out not long ago, it has also hired a Director of Privacy, committed to training employees on privacy principles, and adding a new review process to its internal compliance procedures  [Official Google Blog]

And Myspace, Facebook, and Google aside, here’s a privacy story you should REALLY worry about – apparently ‘the feds’ have been urged to ‘friend’ users on social networks in order to ‘spy on’ their activities

Meanwhile, it looks like a Groupon glitch led to a bunch of users email addresses being revealed…which isn’t altogether the scariest thing in the world, but one could reasonably expect Groupon to keep its newsletter subscribers email addresses to itself [TechCrunch]

If you haven’t heard of the Firefox extension, Firesheep, allow me to introduce it to you – Firesheep allows users to access other users’ login info for social networks, provided those users are on an ‘insecure open wifi network’… [TechCrunch]

And finally, according to Rapleaf – the company that allows you to pretty much mine data on users with only an email address (though users can opt out by visiting Rapleaf’s site and clicking the opt out link) – the key to protecting privacy online is “to make it technically impossible to tie an internet user to their name and address when they are not explicitly logged in” [WSJ]

The big news today is actually Facebook‘s announcement from yesterday. Among the changes and new features announced at its event are a dashboard that will allow you to manage how apps you have connected with Facebook use your information, and the ability to download your information in a zip file [Business Insider]

In case you want the full run-down on changes/new features straight from the horse’s mouth… [Facebook Blog]

And these changes/new features have somewhat appeased one of Facebook’s vocal critics (although it has yet to fully appease them), the Electronic Frontier Foundation [EFF Deeplinks Blog]

Speaking of the EFF, it – along with the Internet Society and the Center for Democracy and Technology – has released a Firefox plugin that alerts you to when a site you have visited before has changed the terms of its privacy policy…pretty slick! [Forbes]

Elsewhere, Intel, Microsoft and eBay have expressed their support for a bill that would strengthen federal privacy protection on the web [WSJ]

Recapping some of Google CEO Eric Schmidt‘s “faux pas” as the company’s spokesman, including this gem when speaking about privacy – “We know where you are. We know where you’ve been. We can more or less know what you’re thinking about” [Fast Company]

And finally, this week in privacy litigation – potential class action suits have been filed in Georgia against Yahoo!, Comcast and Windstream for violating federal wiretap and computer privacy laws [Law.com]