It is perhaps ironic that Twitter’s censorship announcement and Google’s privacy updating came in the week that Canada, along with many other countries, was celebrating Data Privacy Day.

The moves by Twitter and Google underscored just how much people are willing to give up in return for getting free online services. And if that wasn’t enough evidence, we have Facebook now making its Timeline mandatory for its 800 million users.

Privacy is the currency that they are trading and companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook are dependent on users’ willingness to share information about themselves.  Users get a range of services and social networks; the companies parlay the information into lucrative ad revenue.

In Google’s case the furor arose over the unification of the privacy policies of its many services, from Gmail to YouTube and others, under a single policy. The net effect is as long as you are signed into a Google service the company can collect all your activities on its other services, compiling a wealth of data on you that could be used for targeted advertising.

Facebook, soon to launch a $5 billion initial public offering, is making the shift to Timeline, a move that some users and privacy experts.  A feature that could give Facebook creeping new status,  Timeline has the potential to reveal personal information from your Facebook profile going back years.  There is an option to limit the past posts that you share with the public but keeping up with Facebook’s privacy settings is a job in itself and this is a privacy setting that could easily be overlooked by users.

If you want to ensure your entire Facebook life isn’t open for public viewing, click on Privacy Settings on your Facebook account and click on “manage post visibility” under the heading, “Limit the Audience for Past Posts.”