In today’s Quick Hits, we share a segment from Newshour, talk about the big privacy stories from 2010, and discuss the story of a nursing student who was dismissed from school after posing for a picture with a…placenta.

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Debating Merits of “Do Not Track” on Newshour

On this episode of the long-running PBS news program Newshour, “Ray Suarez speaks with FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz and Mike Zaneis, general counsel of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, about the state of Internet privacy practices, concerns and proposed regulation.”

Phototag Spam Showing Up on Facebook

In an article for Business Insider, Nicholas Carlson writes about “Mark Zuckerberg’s worst nightmare,” spammers using Facebook’s phototag system to spread illegal ads throughout the site. Business Insider shows a sample of phototag spam, which claims to offer users a free iPad. Facebook’s relative lack of spam has been one reason the site has shown such impressive growth. If Facebook becomes inundated with junk, it could see a decline similar to MySpace.

Year in Review: Privacy Leaks Hit Web Surfers Far and Wide

CNET’s Declan McCullagh takes a look back at 2010 and the many privacy issues that concerned Web surfers during the year. Just a few of the stories McCullagh brings up in his look back include AT&T leaking user data, Facebook app developers selling user data to third parties, and Google facing legal challenges over its accidental Wi-Fi snooping.

Old Versions of Facebook Apps Can Still Transmit Personal Data

While Facebook has made it much easier for users to control the data that they share with third-party applications, if you are still using an app from over a year ago there is a chance that it still has full access to your Facebook data and your friends’ Facebook data. Because of this, it is important to check over your apps to see how much info you’re sharing. If there’s a newer version of the app, you should reinstall it.

Nursing Student Kicked Out of School for Posing With Placenta

It’s an admittedly gross headline, but it’s perfectly accurate. Several nursing students were recently removed from classes after they snapped photos of themselves posing with a placenta they had been studying as part of their course work. Interestingly, the students asked the teacher of the class if the pictures would be okay on Facebook, and the teacher implied that they would be. Sometime later, however, an administrator at the school called the students into a meeting and informed them that they were dismissed from the program.

One of the students is suing the school, claiming that she was not given a formal hearing. Before filing suit, however, the student apologized for the photo saying that she had deleted her Facebook account because she “cannot afford a tool that tempts me to remove any deeper thought behind my actions.”