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]

Oh boy, does this sound like a mess…so, apparently Aaron’s, Inc., which allows consumers to rent home appliances and other similar accouterments (including PCs) eventually leading to ownership, has the ability (which it allegedly has exercised) to “remotely access, intercept and monitor customers’ private, personal electronic communications, information, screen shots, keystrokes or images captured on webcams” (from PCs rented by its customers)…or at least that’s what the complaint filed against it says… [TIME]

For the second day in a row, I feel it’s necessary to point out that if you have dedicated any remotely significant amount of time to thinking about/studying Google, it should come as no surprise that in addition to “tracking” users for the value of location data, it also launched its Google Voice service a couple of years back so that it could gather data on “better learn how to transcribe human voice to text”… [Gizmodo]

And what would a Privacy Net post be without multiple Google stories? In addition to the “revelation” above, Google’s South Korean offices also were apparently raided yesterday “on suspicion that its mobile advertising unit, AdMob, had illegally collected users’ location data without users’ consent.” Of course, you probably remember that South Korea was already in the process of investigating Google for said location data collection, so I guess you could say the heat is now officially on in South Korea… [NY Times]

Finally, this probably won’t come as much of a surprise if you follow the headlines here day in and day out, but you might say that in terms of privacy regulation, Europe is the global leader, with its composite nations taking rather firm stances on privacy. But it’s not jsut the varied countries that are at the forefront. Indeed, yesterday EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding said she “would propose extending unionwide rules about breaches of privacy to online banking, video games, shopping and social media,” and reiterated that “any company operating in the EU market or any online product that is targeted at E.U. consumers should comply with E.U. rules” [NY Times]

In the days immediately following the uproar over the revelation that Google and Apple “track” users of their devices, we mentioned last week that some consumers wasted no time in suing Apple for that practice. Well, Apple ain’t alone in that anymore – two Michigan women have now sued Google for the same chicanery… [Detroit News]

Elsewhere in Google and mobile privacy – Google’s Mobile Director Jason Spero recently commented that he thought the Interactive Advertising Bureau should take a more active stance on mobile privacy, and generally set guidelines so companies can have a better idea of how to build/tweak their mobile apps/products… [PC Mag]

So, we mentioned last week that Sony’s Playstation Network had been hacked and that as a result, millions of users’ personal information was compromised, including potentially credit card info. Well, the latter indeed seems to be turning out to be true, as Sony said info on something like 10 million credit card may have been compromised, although nothing has been confirmed… [Kotaku]

I’m not sure we didn’t know this already, but in addition to Apple and Google as device OS makers, our own mobile phone companies also store geolocation data on us (at least in part for our own safety), though they haven’t experienced the same level of scrutiny (yet, anyway) for it. Either way, Verizon apparently will start putting warning labels on its phones warning users that it does in fact have the ability (and may) “track” their movements… [Forbes]

Finally, it’s not like Sony’s recent breach (noted above and last Thursday) was the first of its kind – indeed, at least several major such breaches have occurred over the last six months to a year – but while it might seem counterintuitive, customers of those vendors/companies who had their security breached have actually stayed as customers of those vendors/companies… [AP]

Well, after the uproar created at the end of last week/this past weekend about Apple and Google “tracking” iOS (iPhone/iPad) and Android users respectively, you already knew the digital privacy-focused Congress was going to get involved on some level (beyond just sending a letter, like Al Franken did to Apple last week). And sure enough, both Apple and Google have been summoned to a privacy hearing on May 10 to discuss the iPhone/Android location tracking “issue” we’ve mentioned over the last few days… [Ars Technica]

But outside of the floor of Congress, Apple also may find itself in a courtroom, as a couple of iPhone/iPad users have sued the company for its location tracking activities… [Bloomberg]

Either way, according to Steve Jobs himself, Apple “[doesn't] track anyone” and “the info circulating around is false”…so for whatever that’s worth… [MacRumors]

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]

Skype for Android users – listen up. Apparently the company recently discovered that (like some other Android apps) its users personal data may have actually been “vulnerable — if a user unwittingly installed a malicious third-party app to his or her device”… [Mashable]

And speaking of mobile privacy, apparently Google – while beefing up its ability to target mobile ads – is giving users the ability to opt-out of more targeted mobile ads (meaning contextually relevant, I believe, based on your user data), in addition to a couple of other privacy protections (including “double anonymization” and in-app notices)… [Search Engine Land]

A while back you may remember that we mentioned a federal case holding that said police officers were(are) required to obtain warrants before tracking anyone using GPS. There is actually a split among circuits on the issue, and so the Obama administration has asked the Supreme Court to take the case and resolve the split on the 4th amendment issue… [AP]

Elsewhere in the Obama administration’s stance on US digital privacy rules – apparently the White House wants to institute a new secure online ID system that would give users a way to identify themselves universally that would help prevent identity theft…according to this report, “the plan envisions replacing today’s reality of generally having to remember passwords for dozens of sites where consumers have already lodged their sensitive data, such as credit card numbers” [Wired]

We haven’t covered US net neutrality issues much, but apparently the EU recently decided that the practice of ISPs monitoring users downloads for those downloading copyright infringing material (and shutting such downloading down) actually violates user privacy… [paidcontent.org]

And of course, we’ve been highlight the US’ efforts in privacy legislation a lot more lately (with the introduction of last week’s privacy bill), but also over in the EU, they seem to be taking a somewhat similar approach, which happens to be more amenable to the advertising industry. It is currently working with the companies that make the browsers we all use to surf the web to integrate a button that would allow users to either opt-in or not be tracked using cookies, and the effort would also require any site that wants to place a cookie on a users machine to disclose that it is doing so, with a little icon integrated that when clicked opts the user out of such tracking… [Telegraph]

Finally, a while back you may remember the Indian government in a standoff with RIM over its desire to be able to monitor Blackberry users’ communications within its country. Well, it’s back on that detail, only with a new target – Nokia. Apparently India does not want Nokia’s new push email service to launch without the proper ability for it to monitor such communications…and here we go… [Engadget]

So, as we mentioned last week, Google finally resolved its dispute with the FTC over its Google Buzz introduction last year and the privacy violations that came with it. But not everyone was pleased with the result…the Electronic Privacy Information Center (the privacy advocacy group that filed the original complaint), in conjunction with a number of its brethren, is a little less than enthused that it isn’t slated to receive any of the $8.5 million Google agreed to pay out as part of the settlement… [Ars Technica]

Speaking of privacy advocacy groups, Consumer Watchdog apparently just introduced (in conjunction with CA Senator Alan Lowenthal) a privacy bill for California that would “allow consumers in the state to stop unwanted online tracking”…and it did so today specifically to challenge new Google CEO Larry Page on privacy… [Press Release]

Finally, if you’ve received emails from Tivo, Marriot Rewards, Capital One, Citi, Disney or a number of other businesses, your email may have been compromised. Apparently the vendor that handles email marketing (or at least the databases) for the aforementioned clients (and others) had its database breached over the weekend, exposing many users email addresses… [TechCrunch]

So yeah, yesterday we mentioned that Google was reportedly planning on adding a feature to its Goggles app that would allow users to pull in a person’s information just by taking a picture of the person with their phone. Well, according to Google, that ain’t happening… [The Inquirer]

Elsewhere in creepy innovations (literally) – Creepy is a new app (for Windows or Linux) that apparently can tell the user geolocation information for any person who uses Foursquare, Twitter, and/or Flickr to disclose their location – indicating where that user “spends most of his/her time”… [Lifehacker]

And today in privacy litigation – apparently LinkedIn is the latest web giant to get sued for allegedly violating its users’ privacy. Apparently a California man thinks the fact that LinkedIn discloses a users unique ID to third party advertisers (allowing them to place a tracking cookie on his computer, and identify him by name) means a court should award him damages for violating his privacy, though LinkedIn thinks the case lacks merit… [Mediapost]

Finally, we’ve mentioned how some companies aren’t waiting for government to regulate privacy (or at least implement the FTC’s proposed “Do Not Track” concept), including browser makers like Microsoft and Mozilla. Apparently also implementing “Do Not Track” is the AP News Registry… [The Mozilla Blog]

Recently, it was reported that President Obama may be considering Google CEO Eric Schmidt to succeed current Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. But as this position would make him a voice in the governmental online privacy debate, Consumer Watchdog – a privacy-focused non-profit – cautions against this move…likening it to making Bernie Madoff head of the SEC… [Press Release]

And while we’re talking about government’s role in shaping digital privacy policy – don’t listen to those who will try to scare you into thinking “Do Not Track” is bad for the market… [eWeek]

Like we said yesterday, no company is immune to the current privacy scrutiny going on in this country, and perhaps looking to seize on the current climate, a class action suit was just filed against Netflix for “retaining data about users’ movie rental history and recommendations” after users have canceled their accounts… [MediaPost]

The Senate Commerce Committee has scheduled a second hearing on online privacy for next Wednesday, the goal of which is apparently to understand whether or not government intervention is necessary in order to properly protect our privacy on the web… [The Hill]

We’ve mentioned several times recently that Microsoft’s upcoming latest version of its Internet Explorer browser (IE9) would emphasize privacy controls, including potentially the ability to opt out of ad tracking. Well, we now know that we can expect to find out what exactly that all looks like next Monday, March 14… [Microsoft IE Blog]

Yesterday, we mentioned how the EU just approved a law that would require all sites to get explicit permission from users in order to “track” them using cookies. Later, Gizmodo explained just how silly and pointless such an effort would be… [Gizmodo]

Finally, no stranger to litigation, Google may find itself in another courtroom to defend itself against a plaintiff who is displeased with its practice of scanning gmail users’ mail in order to serve them relevant ads. Of course, this is not a new issue for Google to deal with, but nevertheless, it happened… [InformationWeek]