Due to government regulation and customer demand, Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs believes that "Do Not Track" technology will soon be standardized across the Web. "It probably doesn't need to be regulated, but it probably will be," Kovacs tells The Wall Street Journal's Digits blog. "The thing that will give it teeth is what the user decides." Consumers, he believes, will shun technology and Web sites that don't include simple privacy protections. As a result, Mozilla -- along with chief rival Microsoft -- have taken steps to integrate do-not-track technology into their respective Web browsers, Firefox and Internet Explorer. …

Matthew Rothenberg, head of product -- yes, singular -- at Flick is leaving parent company Yahoo, he revealed in a personal tweet. In the interim, Markus Spiering will be stepping in as head of product management. In an official statement, Yahoo insists that Flickr "remains a key priority," and that it "continues to have an innovative, energetic and creative leadership team." Yet according to TechCrunch, "The situation is not great inside the once proud service." Indeed, "Lately, we've been hearing a lot of talk of internal turmoil within Yahoo and the Flickr group." Last fall, brought on ex-Microsoft exec …

Breaking into the business of real-world commerce, Google reportedly plans to start testing a mobile-payment service at stores in New York and San Francisco. Within four months, Android users will be able to use their smart phones to buy products and services from select merchants, sources tell Bloomberg. "The project would put Google in a growing field of companies experimenting with [near-field-communication technology], which lets consumers pay for products and services by tapping a device against a register at checkout, giving them an alternative to cash or physical credit cards." Regarding New York and San Fran,

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has agree to assist AOL as a "social impact" strategic adviser, reports The Wall Street Journal. With no plans to leave Twitter, Stone will reportedly work on cause-based initiatives for AOL, including the creation of a system to help people volunteer in their communities, and a video series featuring companies committed to philanthropy. In a statement, Stone said he agreed to take the additional role to "rally companies to think about new ways of doing business." Stone's appointment is one of several new hires by AOL's Huffington Post Media Group. John Montorio, who has …

Content discovery engine StumbleUpon just unveiled a new ad platform today, StumbleUpon Paid Discovery. "Whereas the old Stumble ad model was primarily targeted to getting traffic for publishers, StumbleUpon CEO Garrett Camp tells me that Paid Discovery is setting its sights on bigger brands, like movie studios promoting a movie or stuff like NFL teams promoting their sites," writes TechCrunch's Alexia Tsotsis. Paid Discovery ads -- from Web sites, videos to mobile sites -- will now show up in a Stumbler's stream without them having to click on a banner or other kind of intermediary mechanism. What's more, …

Moving further into the realm of ecommerce, Facebook plans to test a Groupon-like daily deal service in several U.S. cities, Bloomberg reports. Part of Facebook's existing Deals program, which lets businesses offer specials to users, debut cities include San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, Atlanta, and Austin. Bloomberg describes the move as "an effort to use its 500 million-plus members to capitalize on the surging online-deal market." According to Bloomberg, Facebook's staff will work directly with businesses to highlight deals, and encourage users to share them with friends. "Local businesses will be able to sign up to use this …

Speaking with NetworkEffect, Google executives are shooting the most recent reports of a social network. Google's Chris Messina, who according to reports is helping spearhead a social initiative dubbed Google Circles, says he "didn't know what [the report] was talking about." Bigger picture, "While the search giant is thinking about how to better understand the subtleties of social relationships and may build such functionality into its various products, as it makes them more social, said Messina and others Circles is not a product currently in development," according to NetworkEffect. Following a report in ReadWriteWeb, tech pundit Tim O'Reilly …

Proving that Apple's grip on the tablet market is tighter than ever, retailers reportedly sold out of the iPad 2 during its debut weekend.  According to Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, Apple sold 400,000 to 500,000 iPad 2s, compared with 300,000 iPad 1s during its debut weekend last year. What's more, showing the tablet's ever-broadening appeal, 70% of iPad 2 buyers were new to the iPad, compared with 23% of iPhone 4 buyers who were new to the iPhone at launch. "We believe this shows Apple is expanding its base of iPad users, which is critical to maintaining its early lead …

Citing current YouTube job listings, Mashable calculates that the video sharing site is planning to grow its staff by 30% this year. "The Google-owned video site has dozens of open positions in all areas -- although an especially high number in advertising sales and customer support -- and all around the world," Mashable reports. The unit currently has a reported 650 employees, so a 30% increase would mean an additional 200 staffers before the end of the year. Selling the dream, YouTube said in an official blog post this week: "[B]ecause we believe that technology and platforms like …

Over the past year, The Wall Street Journal has quadrupled the numbers subscribers -- from 50,000 to 200,000 -- paying to receive its content on tablets and electronic readers. So said Les Hinton, publisher of WSJ, after a speech in Boston on Thursday, according to Reuters. "Hinton, who is also chief executive of News Corp's Dow Jones unit, said the figures were surprising and showed how even though consumers have many choices online, they are willing to pay to read certain content on tablets," Reuters reports. Hinton said he was also pleasantly surprised by the strong …