Yahoo is telling lawmakers it will allow Web users to opt out of receiving ads targeted based on their browsing history by the end of the month. With the move, people will be able to decline to receive targeted ads at Yahoo's owned and operated network of sites.

Even without enacting any new privacy laws, Congress has clearly put a big dent in NebuAd's business. This week, the 60-person Silicon Valley company confirmed it had shed some staff. That news comes shortly after last week's revelation that the company had stopped using its former outside PR firm pending the hiring of a new public relations shop that could focus on policy issues.

Around half of all Web users, or 49%, now use search engines on a typical day, according to new research by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Three years ago, only 40% of Web users said they used search on a typical day, and just one in three said the same in 2002.

The upcoming Olympics in China have revived concerns about how Web companies do business abroad, including the extent to which they censor material and whether they can be trusted to protect users' privacy.

A coalition of law professors and digital rights groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation is asking a judge to dismiss the case against Lori Drew, the Missouri resident facing criminal computer fraud charges related to the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier.

This morning, the FCC ruled against Comcast for violating net neutrality principles by throttling peer-to-peer traffic, but the order wasn't quite the all-out blow for net neutrality that it could have been.