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]

I know we’ve mentioned it before, though not all that recently, but apparently the FBI is still pressing government and relevant tech companies for more leeway with wiretapping laws to make it easier to “wiretap” users on the web… [NY Times]

Surely Facebook couldn’t unveil any new feature/service/product without some discussion of privacy, and true to form, some are worried (and probably rightfully so) about the privacy implications of Monday’s announcement – Facebook Messages [Computerworld]

Outside of that in Facebook land, yesterday Mark Zuckerberg spoke at the Web 2.0 Summit, and unsurprisingly was asked to talk about the subject of privacy. Zuck said Facebook’s privacy policies were “not black and white,” while most of what we post on Facebook is our information, “there is information that is somewhere in the middle,” but that he isn’t sure Facebook is “100% right” on those things… [AdWeek]

Obviously one of the biggest issues in online privacy right now is advertisers’ ability to “track” web users online behavior in order to serve them relevant ads. And obviously many people are wary of the practice. For those of you in that position, maybe you should give Adblock Plus a look – it’s a Firefox extension that not only blocks pop-up ads, but also stop advertisers from tracking your behavior on the web [TechCrunch]

Are Twitter DMs less private than we think? Personally, I’m not sure apps having access to my Twitter account and thus my DMs is really all that alarming, but I suppose there is potential for abuse in there somewhere… [PC World]

I believe we may have mentioned this suit when it was originally filed, but nevertheless, two California men filed an amended complaint against Facebook this week, alleging that the company revealed users’ identities to advertisers through referring URLs when users clicked on ads [The Register]

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says if he had to do it all over again, he’d make user profile information public by default, among other things, and ReadWriteWeb’s editor responds with a handful of thoughts, including that Zuckerberg’s (specific) comments seemed arrogant and condescending… [ReadWriteWeb]

Last week, we mentioned a recent study that revealed a decent subsection of Android apps that were “misusing personal information.” Well, it turns out that’s not a practice that is just exclusive to Android – it’s also happening with 3rd party iPhone apps [Engadget]

In advance of any actual legislative action, a large advertising group has unveiled its program to alert users to which/when ads are using their personal information and allow them to opt out of such tracking [NY Times]

The New York Times had a nice little piece about Facebook guru Mark Zuckerberg‘s right hand woman over the weekend in which it highlighted all the ways she helps keep the company running like a well-oiled machine. But one place where she probably isn’t going to help (users, anyway) is privacy… [Gawker]

In the wake of last week’s Rutgers suicide tragedy, NJ is proposing stiffer penalties for invasion of privacy to combat the ease with which it can be facilitated in today’s digital world [NJ.com]

The “7 Biggest Facebook Fails” in honor of The Social Network being a box office hit… [MTV Clutch Blog]

The New Yorker recently conducted a LENGTHY interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, in which one of the things discussed was Facebook’s privacy “problems” – Zuckerberg thinks it’s a third-rail issue and that some vocal critics will “take any minor misstep…and turn it into as big a deal as possible” [New Yorker]

Often the real currency in “social games” is your personal information, not just those credits you buy [TMCNet]

When you delete tracking cookies, typically any company deploying them must “start over” when you revisit a site that employs them, rather than picking up where it left off. Good to know… [WSJ]

Just your daily reminder that Germans are all about data privacy – recently 7500 German citizens in Berlin protested the government and private agencies data collection practices [AFP]

It would intuitively seem like “privacy” and “intimacy” are as dichotomous as wet and dry, but on the web, maybe that’s not quite the case [Inventorspot]

Heretofore, Twitter hasn’t really had any privacy troubles, unlike it’s other social networking behemoth friend, Facebook. But, with the service planning to record all of the links you click, there are certainly some privacy implications if they don’t provide a way for you to purge this click log or somehow anonymize yourself [CNET]

It looks like Google is off the hook in New Zealand (I’m sure they’ll breathe a big sigh of relief) – the country’s law enforcement officials said today that Google’s “inadvertent” data collection did not violate any New Zealand laws [AFP]

One aspect of Apple‘s latest iTunes feature Ping that you may or may not have heard about is – simple privacy controls, that somewhat mirror those of Twitter [NY Times]

Some might say Zuckerberg wanting his privacy is ironic (and maybe it is just a little), but in this case, it’s not like he’s choosing to share these alleged private details with anyone, the man suing him is allegedly trying to force him to do so… [Reuters]

Congress has announced a petition in support of the Main Fairness Act, which would stop states from requiring internet merchants to report consumers’ purchases to state revenue agencies [Press Release]

AOL offers SafeSocial to help parents “monitor” their children’s conversations online. The service sends alerts to the parent anytime an “inappropriate” conversation takes place, logs all comments and photos the child posts, runs background checks on any “friends,” and flags any friends who seem “age inappropriate.” What’ll they think of next… [TechCrunch]

In a similar vein, a school district in Washington has authorized school principals to search students cell phones as part of its new “anti-bullying” plan… [AP]

So remember yesterday, when we mentioned that the only Facebook user you apparently could not block was head man Mark Zuckerberg? Well, the reason isn’t because he’s Mark Zuckerberg; the same thing happens anytime you try and block someone who has been blocked by other users a given [large] number of times… [Mashable]

No idea how this hadn’t struck me before, but one thing about Facebook Places that really isn’t right is that friends can “check you in” with them no matter where they are, whether you are with them or not…it’s not so much the friends checking you in part that’s annoying, it’s that you don’t even have to be with them…there’s really no geo-location involved! [MSNBC]

We’ve seen the results of these studies before, but here’s another discussion of how “millennials” really do care about their privacy online [eMarketer]

“100 million Facebook users’ details published online”…ugh, here we go again [MSNBC]

Sounds like Mark Zuckerberg might as well just buy some property in our nation’s capital… [Washington Post]

The FTC’s thinking of instituting the internet equivalent of a do-not-call list [DMNews]

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security‘s Deputy Secretary has spoken – There will be rules! [CNET]

I almost feel bad for the FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. And not because he has one of the worlds least spellable last names…because all he wants is some clarity [Broadcasting and Cable]

And John Kerry jumps on board the effort to bring our nation’s privacy laws into 2010 [PC Mag]

Some guy in California is just NOW suing Google for its Street View chicanery? [Bloomberg]

Well, at least they’re off the hook in the UK [Guardian]

Elsewhere in litigious society (aka Virginia), a court has said some “privacy advocate” can post politicians social security numbers on teh interwebz [Wired]

Oh, and if you’re curious to know if/when Google is “spying on” YOU, perhaps you should check out Google Alarm (probably best for users who mute their laptops and/or are deaf, though) [Mashable]

So Mark Zuckerberg spoke at All Things D‘s D8 this week and the results were, well, entertaining maybe is the best word for it? [PC World]

“A Simple Way to Protect Your Online Privacy”…unfortunately, it’s not tho share information in the first place…great, thanks for the advice [InformationWeek]

Apparently, privacy advocates asked the FTC to probe Google on the privacy implications of its Invite Media acquisition [Media Post]

In other Google news – it has agreed to turn over the Street View data it “accidentally” collected to Germany, Spain and France [NY Times]

Google CEO Eric Schmidt even admits “we screwed up”… [Telegraph (UK)]

And finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for – you can now “like” privacy on Facebook…how cute [Mashable]

Mark Zuckerberg finally “speaks” out on Facebook privacy – new simpler controls are coming, as is a way to turn off all 3rd party services…though, what I’m still not clear on is whether a higher regard for Facebook users’ privacy is also coming [Washington Post]

Either way, Facebook may have unintentionally shared your personal info with advertisers via the format of its referral URLs [WSJ]

Thoughts on how to protect your brand from a privacy fiasco… [Everything PR]

Is privacy really dead? Or is it just in flux and will concerns begin to subside when we all get more individualized control over our information? [Yahoo! Tech]

Or should we all just accept that privacy is what it is when it comes to the web? [WSJ]

Tools to help manage your privacy online [Detroit Free Press]

According to a Sophos poll, 60% of Facebook users have considered quitting Facebook given the recent privacy controversy…I’m pretty sure that way over-exaggerates most users’ actual intentions, but nevertheless, it exists, so…  [eWeek]

On the flip side, Mashable’s impromptu poll from last week is showing that just slightly more users are fine with Facebook and plan on staying than those who don’t trust Facebook with their personal information… [Mashable]

And finally, Google introduces secure (SSL encrypted) search – protects your searches from being intercepted by 3rd parties [SecurityWatch]