Lots of chatter about privacy the past couple of weeks, driven almost exclusively by Facebook’s cavalier policies towards privacy.

I took a look at Google Trends, a service that seeks to show the popularity of searches over time.

This is what I saw:

– Seven years ago Google users were far more interested in searching for the term "privacy," by about 50% more.

– Italy tops the nations in Google searches for "privacy" over the past seven years, the US is number 4, at about one-half the interest of the Italians.

– Ottawa, Canada, tops the cities list, followed by Milan, and Augusta, Italy, while Washington. D.C is number 4 in terms of searches for "privacy."

– Over the past 30 days, US interest in "privacy" has now dipped below the level prior to Facebook’s privacy issues (a backlash to the backlash on Facebook privacy?). San Francisco and Washington, D.C top the cities list.

[Editor’s Note: Tom cross-posted this at Silicon Valley Watcher. –mrh]