Perhaps we're too busy marveling at all the technological and creative innovations reshaping digital communications, but, for our money, the related issue of personal privacy doesn't get the front-page coverage it often deserves. New research from two MIT students could change that. Forget about salacious photos or social networkers' revealing profile info. Just the basic currency of interactions on social networks -- "friending" -- has the potential of revealing too much, they found. Just by looking at a person's online Facebook friends, they found they could predict whether the person was gay. They did this with a software program …

New details are fast emerging about Yahoo's rebranding campaign. Using the new tagline "It's You!" the campaign will span the globe, and end up costing the battered portal roughly $100 million. Ads have been created by WPP's Ogilvy & Mather, and will focus on personalization and how Yahoo can help people better navigate and organize the Web. The campaign is expected to be officially announced this week, and will be supported by a newly redesigned Yahoo homepage. Oh, and the 'Y' in "It's You!," is coming straight from Yahoo's original logo, while its signature exclamation point will stand out …

Less than three years after acquiring the Web mail client for $350, Yahoo is reportedly shopping around Zimbra. Seeking to streamline and slim down its business efforts, Yahoo already has other assets on the block, including its personals business, and its HotJobs online classified unit. Zimbra is apparently being shopped around by its top mergers and acquisitions exec Greg Mrva. Backed by Benchmark Capital, Redpoint Ventures and Accel Partners, Zimbra's main business was to provide clients -- including Comcast, many ISPs and colleges -- with white-label email software capabilities. The price Yahoo will get, some are speculating, will be …

Adobe Systems wants to make it easier to deploy Flash-based games, media, and apps on social networks and mobile devices. As part of a larger group of services, the company is launching a distribution manager that pumps Flash content and applications to more than 70 social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. The service will also deploy to Windows Mobile and Symbian S60 devices and, of course, Apple's iPhone. Adobe tapped social-networking widget maker Gigya so that Flash-based applications can be distributed on the Web, to the desktop, and to mobile devices -- and be shared.

Microsoft is quietly planning its strategy to take down Apple and dominate the mobile market. Rumored for months, its "Pink" project will supposedly include the guts of the in-development Windows Mobile 7, which means it probably won't be available until late next year. It will also include components from the Zune, and most likely the Sidekick, because the Danger team, which Microsoft paid $500 million for last year, is leading the project. Microsoft reportedly won't be manufacturing these phones, but will partner closely with those who do to create a product mighty enough to take the iPhone down.

Following the Justice Department's objections, Google and the authors and publishers who spent more than two years negotiating a digital-books settlement are presently working out what changes they'd be willing to make to the agreement. "We are considering the points raised by the department and look forward to addressing them as the court proceedings continue," said Google, the Authors Guild, and the Association of American Publishers in a joint statement late Friday. Google is not saying whether or not the parties were considering making changes, but it's nice to know the parties are even talking.

There are plenty of reasons for Facebook's success, but we didn't know crime fighting was one of them. Facebook helped lead to an alleged burglar's arrest, however, after he stopped to check his account on a victim's computer, and then forgot to log out before leaving the home with two diamond rings. If convicted, the socially connected crook faces up to 10 years in prison. We want to know whether he'll have Facebook privileges while there.

So, it looks like Google has released an unredacted copy of its response to an investigation by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission into Apple's apparent rejection of the company's Google Voice iPhone application. Notably, Google's filing seemingly claims that Apple SVP Phil Schiller personally informed Google that the Google Voice iPhone application had been rejected because it "duplicated the core dialer functionality of the iPhone." The claim directly contradicts Apple's response to the FCC, which asserted that the Google Voice application had not been rejected and was still being studied. How will the FCC proceed? Have the two …

In a move that has broad implications for Microsoft's mobile Web future, Palm no longer plans on developing devices running its Windows Mobile platform. Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein revealed the decision on the company's earnings call. Rather, the device maker will invest all of its resources on its new WebOS platform. Previously, Palm shipped some Treo devices running Windows Mobile.

Another day, another example of the Web's inability to protect personal information. This latest instance involves a bug in Google Apps that allowed students at several colleges to read each other's email messages, and, in some cases, view each other's entire inboxes. Google says the incident involved only a few colleges, including Brown University, but IT directors at the affected schools suspect as many as 10 were involved. These same directors aren't happy with the way Google handled the issue, which was to simply shut down every account mixed up in the mess.