In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about Google’s “mistake” and whether in the future wireless devices might include tangible controls for managing privacy. Check it out.

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Google Switches Stories, Admits Street View Cars Collected Personal Data

Contrary to the company’s previous statements on the issue, Google admitted on Friday that it has been inadvertently collecting private data through its Google Street View vehicles since 2006. In Europe, where privacy laws are much more stringent, Google’s mistake (if it was indeed a mistake and not a hushed-up policy) could cause the company significant legal problems.

Originally, Google claims its Street View cars only collected information related to “the publicly broadcast ID number of the device, which is called a MAC address, and the name assigned to it by the owner, called an SSID.” However, subsequent analysis showed Street View cars also collected “a record of sites viewed by the user and potentially the contents of messages if users did not secure their WLANS with a password.”

May 31st is Quit Facebook Day

After the company’s latest round of privacy changes, many users have declared their intentions to quit Facebook once and for all. Now, they can join others in protest and delete their accounts all at once on May 31st, aka Quit Facebook Day. Compared to the overall population of Facebook however, the number of users who actually quit the site may not be enough to spur the company toward any real change. Currently, Quit Facebook Day has 2927 “committed Facebook quitters,” which is a paltry amount compared to the more than 400 million total users at the site.

Forget Facebook, the World Wide Web is Already Social

In an article for the Digital Domain section of the New York Times, Randall Stross makes an interesting claim that Facebook is actually less social than it pretends to be. Stross discusses how the Open Web, or the non-password protected Internet that we use for basic information gathering, is actually better at delivering “recommended” information than Facebook. Considering that Facebook users receive information filtered directly by friends and connections, Stross’ argument seems backwards at first glance. When you take into account the fact that Google’s algorithm is partly defined by a site’s popularity, however, you can see what he’s getting at. The web already offers recommended information naturally.

Soft-Touch Privacy Controls for Wireless Devices?

In a blog post for GigaOm, Stacy Higginbotham relates an interesting privacy proposal from wireless analyst Chetan Sharma. Focusing specifically on Internet access via wireless devices, Sharma proposed an external control, similar to a cell phones volume buttons, that “allows users to open/close privacy across all applications and services with the touch of a button.” Incorporating a feature like this would be extremely difficult given the wide range of web applications now available for download on 3G phones, but the idea itself is interesting. Rather than having to manage your privacy controls through a confusing multi-step process, you could simply click a button.