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Despite claims that the age of privacy is over, many Internet users continue to have privacy concerns, particularly as more and more of our personal data is stored and shared online.

Having a privacy policy for your startup is important then in terms of meeting the legal requirements for protecting your customers' personal information. But it's also important in terms of building trust of people who use your products and services. And while, granted, not everyone is going to click on the link to read your privacy policy, that doesn't mean you can avoid addressing this topic. And in fact, how you address privacy issues might be a way that sets your startup apart from your competitors.

"Safety is Facebook's top priority," writes Facebook's Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan on a company blog post introducing the social network's new Safety Center, a revamped help portal featuring educational information for users, with sections dedicated to parents, teens, teachers and law enforcement professionals. It's a somewhat ironic statement from a company that recently prompted its 400-plus million users to accept "recommended" changes that opened up their data - including status updates, photos, videos, links and friend lists - to a public audience, revealing details that many users assumed were private.

Around the same time as the "privacy debacle," as we like to call it, unfolded, Facebook also announced a "Safety Advisory Board," a group whose purpose is to review safety-related procedures and documentation as well as make suggestions regarding best practices and other procedures. How about this safe practice, Facebook: don't publicize people's private information?

Later today, Google will ask all Google Buzz users to reconfirm their privacy settings. Since the launch of the service, which was quickly overshadowed by a major controversy around the default privacy settings, Google has made significant changes to the Buzz start-up process and privacy settings. A lot of people started using Buzz long before these changes were rolled out, however. Starting this afternoon, all existing Buzz users will see a confirmation screen that summarizes their current settings and gives them the option to change these settings, as well as the option to turn off Buzz altogether.

How would you feel if your employer constantly tracked your activity on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter in real time? If it's up to Teneros, your employer will soon use the company's new Social Sentry service to follow your every move on social media sites in real time. As Teneros points out, more than 70% of white collar workers have Facebook accounts - which they regularly access during work hours - and a number of corporations like Domino's Pizza and British Airways have recently suffered major damage to their carefully constructed brand images because of their employees' actions on social networks.

Google Analytics offers site owners an easy and free way to gather highly detailed analytics about their websites' visitors. A lot of people, however, don't feel comfortable with the idea that Google can track their every move on the Internet. After all, even if you don't use any Google product yourself, you will still send personal data about yourself to Google through programs like Google Analytics. According to an announcement the Google Analytics team just posted on its blog, you will soon have the option to opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics.

According to German law, Germany's ISPs and phone services had to retain data about every citizen's phone calls and emails for six months. Today, however, Germany's Federal Constitution Court suspended this law and ordered that all the data stored to date must be deleted immediately. According to German news magazine Der Spiegel, the court said that it wasn't sufficiently clear that the data storage was secure enough and what exactly the data would be used for.

There isn't a mass exodus from Facebook over the privacy settings, but it is responding with messages like this sent to users to assuage their fears: "Worried about search engines? Your information is safe. There have been misleading rumors about Facebook indexing all your information on Google. This is not true..."

Several thoughtful Web 2.0 users have blogged about their decision in the last week to leave Facebook and two different "suicide" sites exist.

After a predefined period designed to increase transparency and maximize user feedback, Facebook has announced that, with fewer than 7,000 user comments, it will proceed to implement its proposed amended privacy policy.

With adequate user information, Facebook hoped to become better stewards of "the unnaturally uncontrollable nature of communication," as we called their general user-data privacy dilemma in June. And this revision also makes a nod to Canadian objections to Facebook's policies. What's in store for users, and how did the thousands of units of user data impact Facebook's governance and privacy policy? Read on to get the full story.