Today we’ve seen a couple of new – and major – privacy related updates. The first one comes from WSJ, who reports the Supreme Court refused to extend personal-privacy rights to corporations in case 09-1279, Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T. Chief Justice John Roberts stated it’s nothing personal. “The case concerned AT&T’s effort to block public disclosure of emails and other potentially embarrassing documents in Federal Communications Commission files on the telecommunications giant’s alleged overbilling of the New London, Conn., public schools.”

AT&T paid $500,000 in a consent decree and agreed to polices for future prevention of overbilling back in 04. Now the Supreme Court decided unanimously corporations now won’t be able to enjoy certain personal-privacy exemptions included in the FOIA public disclosure law. The FCC did withhold certain materials classified as commercial secrets under FOIA and deleted individuals’ names to maintain their personal privacy, but these exemptions are not extended to the content of some of the documents.

Speaking of privacy, SafeBox announced it has reached the 650,000 users milestone for its encrypted SMS app. The app enables users to receive private SMS within a private list of contacts. The messages are saved in a PIN-encrypted space.  “We are on target for our first million users thanks to strong partnerships with application stores, mobile operators and content providers worldwide.” said Philippe Joly, CEO, SafeBox.”

SafeBox may be on the track for growth, but RIM’s market share in India is overcoming its own privacy stumbling blocks. Almost every BlackBerry communication channel, including corporate e-mail, has a backdoor cut out for the Indian government.  In their dealings with government officials, RIM is facing several fundamental privacy questions with its own global expansion.

While AT&T’s ruling today marks another chapter in mobile security and privacy, social networking site Facebook has been dealing with privacy in its own way, too. Facebook’s revived plans to share users’ home addresses and cell phone numbers with third party developers brings up concerns regarding the network’s monetization and advertising intentions, and the plans have faced a great deal criticism and protest in the past.  As Facebook continues to build a business around content sharing and personal relationship management, it will have to defend and justify its decisions, and reconcile them with end users when it’s all said and done.

With Facebook heading into the mobile sector, these issues will only grow, especially as mobile devices bring consumers front and center with their content.  Personalized access and management will emphasize consumers’ content interaction and needs, with social networks and service-based applications needing to keep security and privacy as a central component of their business moving forward.