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]

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]

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]

Perhaps you’ve heard by now, perhaps you have not. But according to news disclosed yesterday, apparently a federal grand jury has been tasked with investigating “personal data sharing among smartphone applications,” for which the internet radio service Pandora was apparently already subpoena’d (among others), though it was told it was “not a specific target of the investigation”… [LA Times]

Following Germany’s lead, apparently a Switzerland court has directed Google to blur images of Swiss citizens and their cars’ license plates in Google Street View due to privacy concerns… [AFP]

But Google isn’t going to take all of this recent pressure from EU governments lying down. Apparently it (along with 20 other internet companies, including Facebook) is about to file a complaint with the French Court, protesting a decree that requires it (and the other companies) to “keep web users’ personal data for a year”… [AFP]

Elsewhere for Google, and Street View as well, there’s apparently a new book about Google out called “In The Plex,” which actually hits on a number of privacy issues for the company (and its employees). Here are six such “moments” from the book… [Forbes]

It’s been a while since we’ve mentioned Google Street View and foreign governments, but apparently that doesn’t mean that the discussion is over. France – which had been investigating Google’s Street View efforts for potential illegality under French law – finally announced that as a result of its Street View tactics, it was fining Google 100,000 Euros (or about $142,000)… [AFP]

Increasingly, as we talk about where the current state of digital privacy on the web is headed, we’re seeing more and more advertisers and site owners looking to take the steps to comply with “Do Not Track” on their own, or at least find ways to continue enjoying autonomy while also trying to comply with what the government has been kicking around (in an effort to avoid becoming subject to the government’s regulation)… [San Francisco Chronicle]

Recently we noted that Microsoft had announced that it will be including the ability for users to block certain sites, or all sites, from “tracking” them using tracking cookies…apparently that and the other built-in privacy controls were enough to gain acceptance by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which “develops standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web”… [CrunchGear]

And yesterday we mentioned that Google was going to find out where it netted out in its dispute with the Swiss government over its Street View photos. Apparently the Swiss court asked it to guarantee that it will blur 100% of all license plates and faces in its Street View images…but, Google wasn’t quite thrilled to hear that and pointed out that having to do so would require manually reviewing every Street View picture tile that makes up Switzerland’s street view… [PC Mag]

Well, while Israel wonders about the privacy implications of Google Street View (which we mentioned it was doing the other day), Switzerland’s court is actually about to decide whether or not Google broke Swiss law with its Street View wi-fi sniffing incident from last year… [WSJ]

But that’s not the only hot water Google has found itself in recently. Apparently it also recently held a contest for kids called “Doodle 4 Google” that required those kids to submit their social security numbers in order to enter. It was the fourth annual iteration of the contest, but apparently only the first time Google ever asked for social security numbers… [NY Mag]

Facebook and the government haven’t had exactly the smoothest relationship over the last year or so, and recently, the FTC had asked Facebook to provide clarity on its privacy practices. And as of yesterday the FTC got an answer… [Huffington Post]

Elsewhere in FTC land, in a move that should surprise no one, a group of advertisers and marketers has asked the FTC to allow them to regulate themselves and scrap its privacy proposal, which infamously includes the “Do Not Track” concept… [Nextgov]

I won’t even mention how many countries and even states have had some sort of issue with Google over its Street View. I will, however, tell you that the latest may be Israel. Despite the fact that Street View should be coming to Israel soon, many of Israel’s cabinet members are concerned about Street View’s implications for terrorism… [LA Times]

And just in case you were wondering whether the internet “kill switch” the government could be headed towards is a good thing – consider how different the internet might look if the government had that kind of control over it… [Forbes]

In a different kind of privacy hole than we usually mention, apparently anyone can see what’s in your iTunes library just by knowing your email address… [Lifehacker]

I doubt too many of you are unfamiliar with the concept, after all of the stories we’ve highlighted about it over the last couple of months, but in case you’d like to refresh your memory on what “Tracking” really means for “Do Not Track” purposes… [EFF Deeplinks Blog]

Finally, if you’re here, I doubt you need me to tell you that in this modern age, privacy threats are everywhere and reputation management is as tricky as it has ever been…so I won’t, personally…but here’s a story about that… [NY Times]

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]

Recently, we mentioned how Google was in hot water in South Korea for breaking that country’s telecomm laws with its Street View wi-fi sniffing chicanery. Well, South Korea isn’t the only country currently on Google’s tail for said wi-fi gaffe; Spain is actually bringing suit against Google for violating its privacy laws… [WSJ]

We’ve seen contextual/behavioral advertising in several different contexts, but for the first time in 2011, we may start seeing contextual ads when viewing our bank statements online…which obviously raises questions if advertisers are “reading” bank statements in order to serve ads… [Washington Post]