Facing pressure from privacy advocates and threats of government intervention, some online tracking firms plan to begin revealing all that they know about consumers and their online behavior. Not only that, but, as The Wall Street Journal reports, these rival companies will let consumers edit the interests, demographics and other profile information collected about them, as well as choose to not be tracked at all. One big problem, however, is that more than a hundred tracking firms and Web giants, including Google and Yahoo, have nothing to do with the effort. Online tracking is currently legal, but …

Zynga just announced the acquisition of mobile game company Newtoy, VentureBeat is reporting. Financial terms of the deal haven't been disclosed. "The move shows that Zynga, which is big on Facebook, is serious about becoming a social mobile game company," according to the tech blog. Since Zynga launched FarmVille on the iPhone earlier this year, the game has reportedly been downloaded over 7 million times. Still, Zynga mobile games have been downloaded 10 million times, according to VentureBeat, which comments: "That's small for Zynga, and the company wants its mobile side to grow faster." Online, Zynga attracts over 215 …

Faster than ever, tech giants and retailers are racing to close the gap between online and real-world commerce. Fittingly -- if only for wordplay purposes -- Gap-owned Old Navy has signed on as the first retailer to test Apple's new EasyPay point-of-sale system. That's according to Apple blog 9 to 5 Mac, which was told by sources that this is an Apple-operated system, and "not one of many third party systems that use an iPod to make transactions." Anyone who's ever made a purchase at an Apple store should be familiar with the company's co-called PoS system, …

This past weekend, The New York Times ran a story about an online retailer who found he could improve his Google PageRank by encouraging poor consumer reviews. Some experts questioned the effectiveness of such a strategy, but Google -- having recently embarked on a crusade to woo local businesses and online shoppers -- took the implications seriously. Late Wednesday, the search giant said it changed the way it ranks search results so that, according to The New York Times, "unscrupulous merchants would find it harder to appear prominently in searches." …

Sometime next year, the BBC is expected to debut a subscription-based iPad app for U.S. consumers. "The U.S. is likely to get its hands on the app first, some time in the middle of next year," reports the Register. "If successful, BBC Worldwide -- the broadcaster's money-making division -- will extend it to other areas." According to the Register, the decision is up to the BBC Trust. Luke Bradley-Jones, who heads BBC.com, tells The Financial Times that the cost to US subscribers has yet to be determined. In the story -- which you'll need a subscription to …

EBay is in the process of acquiring local shopping site Milo.com for $75 million, sources tell Business Insider. Milo.com is a shopping search engine that lets online users search through the stock of local brick & mortar retailers. Given that eBay owns Shopping.com, Business Insider calls the rumored deal "a nice fit." If true, the grab also likely reflects eBay's interest in the local, real-world retail business -- a white hot market as evidenced by Google's reported $6 billion offer to buy Groupon. "Anything that allows small retailers to market online without having to build a Web …

File this one under sad and predictable. Yahoo's head of corporate development, Andrew Siegel, is heading for the door, sources tell BoomTown. Not only did Siegel join the company just over a year ago to lead the critical business of mergers and acquisitions, but, according to Boomtown, he "is well liked at Yahoo." Translation: Expect the departure to lower morale even further in the wake of numerous executive exits, falling industry stature, and serious questions about the company's future. According to BoomTown, "Siegel has made some very prescient moves on game-changing companies for Yahoo to purchase -- …

Intent on roiling yet another key market, Google is reportedly ready to debut its long-delayed e-book service. Having resolved all remaining technical and legal issues, sources tell The Wall Street Journal that Google Editions, so-called, is set to debut this month. Google's "open" model represents a clear alternative to e-book leaders like Amazon and Apple. "Google Editions hopes to upend the existing e-book market by offering an open, 'read anywhere' model that is different from many competitors," writes The Journal. Along with the ability to access …

AOL has reportedly acquired email prioritization app Unblab. Citing an email sent from Unblab's founder Eli Holder -- and an announcement on Unblab's website -- TechCrunch reports that Holder will be joining the AOL mail team to work on the company's new email client Project Phoenix. "So the assumption here is that it looks like Project Phoenix will soon get a Priority Inbox-like feature," TechCrunch speculates. AOL Mail represents 5% of the page views on the AOL network, "so a prioritization feature like Priority Inbox can only help the company retain email users from joining competing clients …

In order to add "first-run" films to its streaming catalog, Netflix has signed a multi-year deal with new film distribution company FilmDistrict. Netflix just recently introduced a streaming-only subscription plan in the U.S., and, according to ReadWriteWeb, "This deal is one step in battling a prime criticism of the plan -- that content does not reach Netflix's streaming-only subscribers quick enough." Per the deal, Netflix will work with FilmDistrict to license content for streaming in the "pay TV window," which occurs in the few months after a movie is released on DVD. "Under the deal," according to …