In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about the increasing competition between Facebook and Google, why teens don’t want to be friends with their parents online, and how one dating website’s security error opened up access to millions of passwords and other sensitive user data.

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Google Fighting Off Facebook

This article form the Wall Street Journal explains how Google is working to fight off Facebook, which is rapidly growing to threaten Google’s dominance in the search industry. As James B. Stewart explains in the column, the goal of both Facebook and Google is to be the “point of entry for Web users, the theory being that whoever controls the gateway will deliver the most effective advertising platform.” In their efforts to achieve this goal, both Google and Facebook have taken some liberties with personal privacy protections. As the competition between Google and Facebook gets more fierce, privacy advocates should be on the lookout for violations of user privacy.

Some Teens Fear Friending Parents Online

A recent survey from Kaplan Test Prep revealed that “more than a third of teens whose parents are on Facebook have not agreed to friend them. Of this group, nearly 40 percent had simply ignored their parent’s request, leaving them in Facebook limbo.” This article from the Kansas City Star talks to several teens and gets their explanation for why they don’t want to friend their parents online. It also offers several tips for parents on how to use Facebook without embarrassing their children.

Free Dating Website Plenty of Fish Hacked, Exposing Sensitive Personal Data

The free dating website PlentyofFish.com was hacked last week, exposing the e-mail addresses, usernames, and passwords of millions of users. The alleged hacker claims he wasn’t hacking at all, but merely pointing out a security flaw in the website. Plenty of Fish has reset all user passwords and closed the exploitation, but anyone who has used the site should be on guard against identity theft and should make it a point to change their other account passwords.

Privacy Advocates Upset Over Facebook’s New Advertising Scheme

Facebook recently announced a new advertising scheme called Sponsored Stories, which allows companies to sponsor a user comment or status update that mentions its brand. Currently, there is no way for users to opt out of Sponsored Stories, leading many privacy advocates to call on Facebook to make a change before it is rolled out to the site’s nearly 600 million users.

Larry Magid: Sponsored Stories is a Form of “Commercial Exploitation”

In a reasoned column for the San Jose Mercury News, Internet safety advocate Larry Magid criticizes Facebook’s Sponsored Stories plan saying, “There is a difference between letting your friends know you like something and allowing a company or organization to include it in a paid advertisement, regardless of how limited that ad’s audience might be. While I wouldn’t call it an invasion of privacy, I would call it a form of commercial exploitation.”

For Magid, the issue isn’t privacy, but context. You may choose to share your dining experience with friends on Facebook, but that doesn’t mean that you endorse the restaurant. In this case, the context of what you shared matters. Magid argues that taking away the context of a user’s updates may have a “chilling effect” on the use of Facebook’s “like” button.