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]

The biggest news in privacy today comes from Washington DC, where on Friday, California Congresswoman Jackie Speier introduced the bill we’ve all been anticipating – the now-infamous “Do Not Track,” which the FTC even last week just said it would seek to impose if the online ad industry didn’t start to regulate itself… [Mashable]

Which warrants some commentary, artfully crafted by the inimitable paidcontent.org – “Three Reasons Why A ‘Do Not Track’ Bill WILL Pass This Year”… [paidcontent.org]

Elsewhere in CA on the privacy front – the CA Supreme Court just ruled that retailers and other vendors (in CA) can no longer ask users for their zip codes when using their credit cards for purchases… [LA Times]

And finally, in browser privacy news, apparently Microsoft is close to releasing the latest version of its Internet Explorer browser, which will include more privacy controls, though I’m not entirely sure what those will be since the majority of this article is hidden behind the Wall Street Journal’s paywall… [WSJ]

Well, apparently 2011 is not just the year that we’ll likely see online privacy legislation, it’s also the year of the online privacy survey. Despite similar studies we mentioned recently that had disparate findings, the results of a recent Gallup poll show that 70% of Facebook users and 52% of Google users are concerned about their privacy… [USA Today]

And on another topic we’ve been mentioning with great frequency recently – Mozilla has made its intention to include a “Do Not Track” feature in the latest version of Firefox crystal clear over the past month. Now that Firefox 4 Beta has been released, we know that wasn’t just lip service… [Mashable]

Ever since the FTC issued its privacy report a couple of months back, it has become increasingly obvious that the government is looking to introduce legislation to protect us as we navigate these here interwebz. And one of the most discussed ways to help do that is the idea of “Do Not Track.” Well, if you thought it was going to take longer than six weeks into the new year to see the first “Do Not Track” bill hit the floor, think again… [The Hill]

The ACLU announced a new privacy-focused initiative last Friday that it’s calling, “Develop for Privacy.” Not just a clever name, the idea is to encourage mobile applications developers to build mobile tools that will help users protect their own privacy while using their mobile devices… [NetworkWorld]

We talk a lot about protecting your own privacy on the web, but what really are all the types of privacy threats you might have to protect yourself against? Here’s a good primer… [Fast Company]

And in the same vein, here are “10 Facebook Privacy Settings Every User Should Know”… [Mashable]

But speaking of actual privacy threats – a “fake” dating site apparently recently lifted personal information from about a million Facebook users in order to construct “fake” profiles on its own site, without permission from the users OR Facebook… [Business Insider]

And finally – on Friday we mentioned that Congress sent Facebook a letter about that short period of time when it had given developers access to users’ phone numbers and addresses, and about not allowing Facebook to become a “phonebook,” which also included 11 questions about said developer access (or lack thereof, since Facebook cut that access off shortly after it was granted). Well, we didn’t mention it Friday, but it seems they are looking for an answer at some point in the next two weeks… [PC World]

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]

This certainly isn’t the first time we’ve linked to an article about how 3rd party Facebook apps affect your privacy, but apparently some such apps can now access your home address and phone number…presumably only if you post that information to your Facebook account, but still… [Naked Security]

Regardless of what is happening on the digital privacy legislation front, there is one big question that has really yet to be definitively answered, but needs to be if we want to begin regulating – is your online presence person or property? BusinessWeek discusses the issue, which was also the topic of a panel discussion at CES recently… [BusinessWeek]

More in that vein – here’s a discussion of the Obama Administration’s plan to issue each US internet user a unique ID, as well as how much/what leverage the government has to compel companies to hand over information about users… [Techland (TIME)]

Finally, apparently there is some company working on setting up a dating site that constructs profiles for anyone/everyone regardless of whether they even know it or have registered to do so, by collecting data about users that is posted publicly on social networks…so now might be a good time to Google yourself and see what they’ll find [IT News]

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]

A while back we mentioned that Google was facing scrutiny from yet another country (South Korea) due to its Street View wi-fi sniffing, which at this point happened like at least six months ago. Yesterday, South Korean police authorities “officially” said that Google in fact violated South Korean telecomm law as a result… [Guardian]

Here’s an interesting situation – apparently Microsoft has filed a patent application basically trying to patent the granular privacy controls Facebook developed after its major privacy backlash in 2010… [BNET]

This isn’t really privacy related, save for the fact that it involves an individual whose focus is online privacy, but here’s an interview with the man who advises the FTC on regulating privacy on the web as it relates to brand marketing and advertising… [BusinessWeek]

You all probably remember Google Buzz, Google’s somewhat failed attempt at a Twitter-like application that was really more of a Gmail add-on. Well, despite the fact that it released Buzz almost a year ago, a Canadian man is suing Google for breaching his privacy by automatically activating Buzz for all users whether they wanted it active or not (and of course for programming it to automatically follow anyone you had ever traded emails with on Gmail)… [Vancouver Sun]

If you read this blog with regularity, I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you’re particularly interested in digital privacy…in which case, there’s an upcoming event you may be interested in attending. On January 20, AllFacebook, Social Times, and MediaBistro are holding a digital privacy forum… [AllFacebook]

If you’re concerned about your privacy on Facebook, a good idea is to set up lists of friends, so you can control who sees what information about/from you [Lifehacker]

Hopefully this prediction will come true (though I’m slightly skeptic), but “lawsuits will pressure Apple and Google to protect user privacy” – and basically give us control over what information gets shared with advertisers [Reuters]

Along those same lines, maybe it’s time we focused on how to give users control over their information while at the same time causing minimal damage to the online advertising industry… [ClickZ]