Today Shelf Awareness linked to this article on the Reader Privacy Act of 2011, signed into law by California governor Jerry Brown this week. Already in place for libraries, this extension of the law "will require government agencies to obtain a court order before they access customer records from book stores or online retailers."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, who backed the bill along with the ACLU, Google, TechNet, and the Consumer Federation of California, said in a statement:

"Reading choices reveal intimate facts about our lives, from our political and religious beliefs to our health concerns. Digital books and book services can paint an even more detailed picture—including books browsed but not read, particular pages viewed, how long spent on each page, and any electronic notes made by the reader. Without strong privacy protections like the ones in the Reader Privacy Act, reading records can be too easily targeted by government scrutiny as well as exposed in legal proceedings like divorce cases and custody battles."

Good work, California. Get on it, everybody else.

(Related: Remember when American librarians went all badass about the USA Patriot Act? Librarians are so dreamy.)