Google Streamlines Its Privacy Policy. Should Facebook Be Next?

Location-based service Echo Echo recently posted the above image to their blog in a (successful) attempt to garner some media attention as the debate around online privacy continues to rage. As extreme as their "If Mark Zuckerburg Cared About Privacy" example is, it does call attention to the needless complexity of various web service privacy agreements, settings and policies. In the wake of an $ 8.5 million lawsuit settlement today, search giant Google made a gesture of good faith in the "caring about privacy" department, assuring users that they were taking steps in order to make the minutae of online privacy easier to understand. "For example, we’re deleting a sentence that reads, 'The affiliated sites through which our services are offered may have different privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies,' since it seems obvious that sites not owned by Google might have their own privacy policies."