Good morning tech

Good morning!

WHITE HOUSE SEEKS TO LIMIT DOUBTS SPARKED BY WIKILEAKS

White House press secretary Gibbs said on Monday:

"Based on what we’ve seen, I don’t think that what is being reported hasn’t in many ways been publicly discussed, either by you all or by representatives of the U.S. government, for quite some time."

He criticized the leak as a “potential national security concern” but disputed any comparisons with the Pentagon Papers that increased opposition to the Vietnam War.

“I don’t see how, in any way, they’re really comparable,” said Gibbs, who described the Pentagon Papers as policy documents and the Wikileaks postings as “on-the-ground reporting” of events.

-Sam Youngman

ADVANCE LOOK: THE PRIVACY HEARING

Apple, AT&T, Facebook, Google and top officials to testify Tuesday at online privacy hearing

Testifying before the Senate Commerce Committee, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz will likely call for a repeal of the telecommunications common carrier exemption from the FTC Act to allow the agency to work more closely with the FCC to protect consumers of telecommunications services, an FTC source tells the Hill.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Leibowitz are witnesses at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on consumer online privacy Tuesday. Facebook, Apple, Google, and AT&T are witnesses on a second panel at the same hearing.

Excerpts from witnesses' prepared testimonies:

Google addresses Wi-Fi incident. "While our legal team is still reviewing the matter, I can attest that it was not consistent with the value we place on the responsible handling of personal data. Google is taking the review of this matter very seriously, and we will report back with the changes we'll make to prevent such a thing from happening in the future."
-Alma Whitten, Google privacy engineering lead.

AT&T urges industry coordination. "Government and industry must take the bold step of moving beyond a balkanized system of notice and consent regimes that seem more about the entities that are collecting consumer information than the rights of consumers in controlling that information." How? Industry players should "cooperate in a 'back-office' way to honor the information sharing preferences of the customers," similar to banking processes. "Consumers initiating fund transaction are not involved in the details of when and how the automated clearing houses handle the actual money transfers, but have every confidence that their money goes when and where they intend."

-Dorothy Attwood, AT&T chief privacy officer

Facebook stresses that control is in users' hands. "People are at the heart of what we do at Facebook…Individuals provide the content — they have the freedom to share what they want, when they want and how they want … Unlike other Web companies, Facebook does not offer a single homepage; each of the 500 million people that use Facebook has their own personalized News Feed, customized to their interests, friends and communities. For these reasons, user control has always been integral to Facebook."

-Bret Taylor, Facebook chief technology officer

The Jeffrey Chester guide to today's hearing

Privacy advocate Jeffrey Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy provides his view on what to watch for at the hearing today:

GOOGLE, FACEBOOK: These two "will likely stick to their lobbying talking points — all the data we collect is really anonymous, we give users control and it pays the bills to keep the Internet on."

AT&T: The company "will show it suffers from 'Google envy,' urging lawmakers to impose uniform privacy safeguards that could help the phone and cable broadband giants play catch up with the online ad targeting leader. Phone and cable companies fear they will be more tightly regulated than a Google, since they have deep packet inspection technology that is like a digital X-ray on everything a consumer does online." 

APPLE: "A political enigma is Apple, which just began harvesting the digital reams of data it collects to help boost its iPhone mobile ad business. On the one hand, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has publicly said he's concerned about mobile privacy. But he is also going mano-a-mano against Google in the mobile phone ad marketing wars."

BUT THE REAL KEY is "how Leibowitz and Genachowski respond. Unless we hear a strong commitment to protect consumer privacy and transactions online, there will be a growing sense that these two federal regulators are asleep at the digital switch."

(2:30 p.m. 253 Russell Senate Office Building).

TECH CHIEFS TOP LIST OF DECADE'S HIGHEST-PAID

Larry Ellison, the founder and chief executive of the software company Oracle, tops the list of the highest paid executives at public companies during the last decade, a Wall Street Journal analysis released on Monday said.

He was compensated $1.84 billion in that period, the report says.

Second on the list is Barry Diller, the chairman of Expedia and chief executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp. He was compensated $1.14 billion in that period. Steve Jobs, chief executive at Apple, ranked fourth, bringing in $749 million. The full list is here.

CTIA TO JAILBREAKERS: AHEM

It is legal for iPhone users to "jailbreak" their phones to run applications not approved by Apple, the Library of Congress announced Monday.

CTIA, the wireless association, reminded consumers on Monday that jailbreaking can be risky.

“Wireless carriers and handset makers go to great lengths to protect their customer's privacy by blocking spam, filtering for viruses and testing software that is sold through their portals. Unfortunately, ‘jailbreaking,’ or other modifications to a wireless phone’s operating system, increases a consumer’s risk for malware, spyware and other vulnerabilities,” said senior vice president Michael Altschul.

Jailbreaking the iPhone allows users to run applications not vetted by Apple. Application developers sometimes complain that Apple rejects their software for unfounded reasons.

ADA UPDATE PASSES THE HOUSE

The 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act passed the House on Monday night in a vote of 348 to 23. Similar legislation remains in the Senate.

The legislation was introduced by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) so that consumer electronics are accessible for people with disabilities. For instance, the legislation would ensure the availability of closed captioning on the latest devices and bring captions to online video.

The bill passed the House on the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

TODAY: ONLINE GAMBLING MARK-UP

The House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday will mark up Chairman Barney Frank's (D-Mass.) proposed lift on the online gambling ban passed in 2006. Frank's bill would impose consumer protections and implement a licensing and regulation system for the online gambling industry. Brick-and-mortar casinos have voiced concerns about the bill's effect on casinos, and Frank has said he might have to alter the bill to address that. -P.K.

(10 a.m, 2128 Rayburn House Office Building).

TODAY: "706" ON THE AIRWAVES

The Kojo Nnamdi Show will take up the FCC's "706" report that said broadband is not being deployed in a timely way to all Americans. The FCC's Rick Kaplan, U.S. Telecom's Walter McCormick, Free Press's Derek Turner and the Washington Post's Cecilia Kang will discuss.

(12:06 p.m. 88.5 FM WAMU).

CAN'T MISS NEWS.

Executive Notes

FCC, FDA unveil partnership to promote wireless medical technology. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a partnership on Monday designed to promote wireless medical technology, a field they say will cut medical costs and improve care. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg signed a memorandum of understanding and released a joint statement of principles at the beginning of a two-day conference on wireless medical technology.

Google unveils product aimed at government. Google will unveil a new edition of its application products tailored for government use, the company announced Monday on its blog. The product has “specific measures to address the policy and security needs of the public sector,” the company said. Google Apps for Government, for instance, “stores Gmail and Calendar data in a segregated system located in the continental United States, exclusively for our government customers.” -P.K.

Industry Notes

E.U. launches antitrust investigations into IBM. IBM will face two investigations from the European Commission (E.C.) on charges of alleged antitrust infringements in the IBM mainframe computer market, regulators said Monday, the Washington Post reports. The E.C. stated in a news release that the first allegation came from software competitors like T3 and Turbo Hercules, which claimed that IBM sold its mainframe operating system linked to its mainframe hardware, isolating access to IBM’s mainframe computer customers. The second, filed by the European Union’s antitrust regulators themselves, alleged IBM put other suppliers of mainframe maintenance services at a disadvantage. The investigations came in the midst of informal inquires by the Justice Department on IBM’s mainframe practices. -B.K.

Citigroup says iPhone banking app stored data. Citigroup said on Monday that the Citi Mobile iPhone banking program stored customers' account information in hidden files on users’ phones and computers, the AP reports. Citigroup said customers’ data has not been accessed inappropriately. Citigroup also said updates in the program have been developed to ensure deletion of important information in the future. The iPhone application allowed customers to see their account and balances, pay bills, transfer money and locate nearby ATMs. Some of the information saved included logging account numbers and bill payment information. -B.K.

AT&T to fix glitch affecting iPhone speeds. AT&T will fix a software glitch that left some iPhone 4 users with unusually slow upload speeds, Reuters reports. The company said Monday that it began rolling out a software patch. While the iPhone 4 is the only AT&T smart phone to use the problematic technology, the software defect was reported to have affected less than 2 percent of AT&T’s customer base. This glitch marks another technical blunder for Apple’s iPhone 4, following a problem with the iPhone 4’s signal strength display. -B.K.

SCHEDULE.

10 a.m…House Financial Services Committee marks up HR 2267, a bill to allow the Treasury Department to license Internet gambling. 2128 Rayburn House Office Building.

10 a.m. House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emergency Commissions hearing on broadband for first responders. 311 Cannon House Office Building.

1 p.m. House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing on the HITECH Act. 2322 Rayburn House Office Building.

2:30 p.m. Online privacy hearing. 253 Russell Senate Office Building.

SAID.

"Is this the day Internet privacy died for our government?"

-Tech pundit Sarah Lane interpreting the Wikileaks story. (twit.tv)

WATERCOOLER.

STATE…Kara Swisher reported on Friday that sources tell her Jared Cohen, "the State Department’s social networking phenom and the youngest member of its policy planning staff," has been in talks "very recently" about moving to Google. Such a move could spark chatter about the "revolving door" since Google has had to work with the State Department on its difficulties in China in recent months. 

(Puneet Kollipara and Barbra Kim contributed to this post.)