Well, heretofore, even though it has taken some heavy fire from European nations on Street View, Google has more or less appeased all nations’ concerns, including blurring images of citizens, license plates and other personally identifiers in Street View for countries like Germany and Switzerland. But, in what may be a sign that it’s philosophy is changing, Google recently decided to cut its losses in Germany and no longer continue trying to develop Street View for the rest of the country outside of the 20 cities it has already covered… [Mashable]

And speaking of 180 degree changes, are we going to start realizing how we benefit from some forms of digital tracking? This article, which has already generated a lot of buzz, points out that without access to some information about us (including our browsing histories), many of the products we know and love would lose all their value if we were to regulate privacy on the web too strictly… [Slate]

To piggy back off of that idea, another question to ask (before we legislate the heck out of “privacy” on the web) is – are consumers really worried about privacy online, or are they worried about the ability to control their privacy online? I think most would answer the latter, and it’s a fine distinction that deserves greater consideration, especially in all of the government’s recent privacy conversations… [TechCrunch]

We – at least I – learned something last summer about Germany that we may not have known before – it’s a country that’s very concerned with data privacy. So much so, in fact, that Google had to agree to offer German citizens the ability to have their houses blurred in Google Street View (as you can see in the image above). So it shouldn’t really be all that surprising to hear Germany’s Justice Minister say his country wants to become the “leader in international data protection standards”… [BusinessWeek]

Just in case you forgot, here’s a reminder – you might not like Facebook and/or Google using your personal information, but it’s that information that keeps both companies able to offer the services they do for free… [CNN]

And to combine the themes in those first two links – Google also just struck a deal with the State of Connecticut so that it would not have to hand over the user information it “scraped” during the infamous wi-fi sniffing incident of 2010 after the state had been mulling whether or not to require Google to do so… [WSJ]

Finally, the latest version of Android’s OS – Gingerbread – was supposed to have fixed a major data privacy hole in the previous version of the OS. But apparently, there’s a simple way to bypass the fix, and still access an Android phone running Gingerbread’s SD memory card (and thus, anything stored on it)… [Dark Reading: Insider Threat]

Mozilla is apparently working on a new “Do Not Track” feature for its popular Firefox browser that will allow users to opt out of behavioral ad tracking…which is all well and good, but apparently, it’s not exactly the most effective solution… [PC World - "Do Not Track" Feature | Its Flaw(s)]

Inc. asks “is 2011 the Year of a Digital Privacy Revolution?” …and I think we can all agree that it’d be surprising if the answer wasn’t “yes”… [Inc.com]

And speaking (directly or indirectly) about privacy reform and potential legislation – the FTC has granted advertising trade groups an extension to facilitate further commenting on its privacy report, originally released late last year… [Mediapost]

Back to one of the two most polarizing companies when it comes to privacy – Facebook recently agreed to reconfigure its Friend Finder tool in response to complaints from a German privacy watchdog for “further transparency.” No idea what changes this exactly means or whether they will apply across countries or just for German Facebook users, but either way, another example of a country exerting its power over a private entity, as Germany and other countries have already done with Google… [Inside Facebook]

Here’s an interesting prospect – DirecTV is planning on beginning to offer advertising content to subscribers based on “interests, lifestyle, and demographics” – basically contextual/behavioral factors – which obviously carries with it a natural concern for privacy [Fast Company]

Google hasn’t made a lot of friends internationally with its Street View wi-fi personal information collection this year, and one of its most staunch opponents was Germany. One “Google worshipper” chides the country for its strict approach to privacy, in the context of Street View… [Slate]

Speaking of our European friends, the EU Justice Commissioner is none too pleased with us for not yet putting someone in place to spearhead negotiating a data protection agreement with the EU [EUobserver]

Yesterday we mentioned a recent Wall Street Journal report implicating a number of the most popular iPhone/Android apps that share your data with 3rd parties. Here’s why concerns over this practice might be “overblown”… [MacWorld via Network World]

And in that same vein – the Mobile Marketing Association has taken initiative in planning rules around privacy in mobile apps and marketing [WSJ]

Maybe at one point you thought you wanted to add your house/apartment to Foursquare, but later wished you had reconsidered. Luckily, Foursquare now allows you to erase that lapse in judgment (assuming that’s how you look at it) [About Foursquare]

Of course, we’ve said it before and I’m sure we’ll say it again – Google can’t seem to go any appreciable period of time without being sued by someone at this point – this time, a Texas resident is suing Google for scanning non-gmail users’ emails to gmail users in order to serve ads to those gmail users (alleging that this violates the Electronic Communications Privacy Act) [InformationWeek]

And speaking of Google in legal settings – it announced last Friday that it will delete all of the data its street view efforts inadvertently collected in the UK… [LA Times]

One last Google link – here’s what Germany looks like on Street View now that 240,000 Germans have requested that their homes be blurred in order to “safeguard their privacy”… [Gizmodo]

Of course, the other company that consistently finds itself in the crosshairs of the privacy debate is Facebook, and given that it makes so much from behavioral advertising, its Messages product/feature seems potentially poised to be the latest privacy battleground for the social network [Reuters]

Last Friday, AT&T “fixed a privacy loophole” that allowed anyone to have any of 92 million AT&T customers’ service shut off, without even any questions being asked [NBC NY]

And finally, the Better Advertising Project recently secured funding to build a self-regulatory program for the online advertising industry, which seems like it will offer a seal of approval on all ads that meet certain “privacy” specifications [All Things D]

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]

Probably the biggest privacy news today is that a federal court preliminarily approved a settlement in the Google Buzz class action suit. The settlement doesn’t reward actual Buzz users, of course, but rather would provide $8.5 million to organizations that focus on online privacy education [Press Release]

And just when it thought it was out of the woods in the UK, the country yesterday ruled that Google Street View did in act violate the UK’s Data Protection Act…so much for dropping the investigation… [paidcontent.org]

This doesn’t really have anything to do with privacy directly, but here’s a preview of Google Street View in Germany, the efforts toward which began on Monday [Google LatLong Blog]

And as or Germans and privacy – the country just rolled out new “e-ID cards,” which store a citizen’s date and place of birth as well as address and photograph, and have many concerned about data theft [Reuters]

Honestly, I’m just including this link because it claims that Firesheep – the Firefox add-on we’ve mentioned like every other day since last Monday – has been downloaded 542,000 times in a little over a week… [NetworkWorld]

Finally, if you want to remove any geotagging associated with your photos on Google’s Picasa photo service, here’s how… [NY Times]

After all of Germany‘s ire over Google Street View, Google finally launched its German efforts yesterday, and was ironically honored with a freshly baked cake to commemorate the occasion [AFP]

Between that and escaping any kind of scrutiny – criminal or otherwise – in the UK, I’d say this week is shaping up to be pretty good for Google and Street View [ZDNet]

Big things are happening on the privacy front overseas – first, the UK seems to be putting in place new legislation that allows British police and security personnel to tap into and review any British user’s web activity or emails (going as far back as a year) [Telegraph]

Second, Germany released the numbers on exactly how many households opted to have their residences left out of Google Street View – 244,237, or a little less than 3% of German households [Mashable]

And finally, Google says it’s done with using its Street View cars to find the locations of wi-fi networks (presumably everywhere across the globe), which was what led to the privacy uproar back in June… [CNET]

How could we go a week without some sort of Facebook privacy “fiasco?” Facebook’s latest privacy problem is allegedly “leaking” user information (regardless of privacy settings) and information about users’ friends to 3rd party websites, which according to the Wall Street Journal, violates Facebook’s own privacy policy… [WSJ]

So, of course Germany – which has had an issue with basically anything that has privacy implications – is none too pleased with Facebook… [AFP]

And speaking of Germany, Google appears to be “on course” to resume its Street View efforts in the country, despite a soon-to-be-released number of Germans who have “opted out,” citing privacy issues [NY Times]

Before a new website that professed to track celebrities based on users’ (celeb or otherwise) tweets could get off the ground, Twitter stepped in and cut them off… [Forbes]

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, along with its friends at the Center for Democracy and Technology and several other like-minded organizations, has officially launched the “Privacy 2010 Campaign,” which includes a “report card” on how well the Obama Administration handles privacy issues in different contexts [Examiner.com]

And finally, this isn’t privacy news so much as it is security news, but the US is apparently evaluating an Australian plan to have ISPs cut off internet access to users with “infected” devices and alert them to such “infection”… [Associated Press]