Good morning tech

Good morning!

Lawmakers cautious to celebrate Craigslist's inscrutable 'adult services' stance

After Craigslist removed the controversial section of its website on Friday amid pressure from lawmakers and states, the company replaced it with a bar labeled "censored" and refused to comment publicly on the issue. Caution was the word from two members of Congress who were central in raising questions about whether the section abets prostitution and child trafficking.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.)  told The Hill: "Lacking comment or elaboration from Craigslist — after they have defended their position at every turn for years — it's hard to know what they have in mind, especially when they voluntarily took this step yet inaccurately used the word 'censored' to replace 'adult services,' " Maloney said. "For the moment, though, we can be glad the adult ads are no longer available, at least in the U.S."

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) struck a similar tone: "The section is down but not forgotten. We can't forget the victims, we can't rest easy. Child sex trafficking continues and lawmakers need to fight future machinations of Internet-driven sites that peddle children."

Craigslist has yet to clarify the decision, and some analysts belief it could be a high-stakes effort to show that even if the section is removed, unseemly ads will pop up on other sections of the site.

President Obama: New infrastructure will benefit the spread of high-speed Internet

In a Labor Day address in Milwaukee, Wis., President Obama touted his proposed $50 billion in new infrastructure spending, indicating that while road and highways will see cash, so will advanced infrastructure projects.

That includes building an electric grid that relies on communications technology to be more efficient, and building out and upgrading the infrastructure people rely on to access the Internet. "We're talking about the smart grid ... and broadband Internet," Obama said, arguing that the U.S. should have the best infrastructure "in the world." The spending would follow $7 billion in broadband investments promised by the Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Obama’s announcement Monday precedes a speech promoting business tax relief he will make near Cleveland on Wednesday. This is expected to include expanding a research and development tax credit by about 20 percent, or $100 billion, over the next 10 years, simplifying it and making the credit permanent. The technology sector has rallied around the measure. 

The president wants Congress to approve this first-year $50 billion “as soon as possible” and pay for it by scaling back oil-and-gas industry tax incentives, a senior administration official said. Read more in The Hill: http://bit.ly/bHn4LH

Rep. Gordon: NASA given "more mission than money" in Obama budget request

The chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee said Obama is making the same mistake as his predecessors by increasing the scope of NASA's mission without providing additional funding. Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) responded to the concerns of several prominent scientists and former NASA officials on Friday by accusing the administration of leaving the hard choices on NASA priorities to congressional appropriators.

The administration has prioritized the development of the commercial space flight industry, but has indicated in recent months that it intends to preserve the nation's human space flight capability without providing details. Gordon questioned those plans and said the administration's plan is "unexecutable" given the current budget situation. He also chided Obama for adding a crew rescue vehicle to NASA's budget request without accounting for the $1 billion to $2 billion in annual costs. http://bit.ly/bPfXMg

Today, FCC officials to talk on Gov 2.0: Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and Managing Director Steven VanRoekel will speak on at a conference on "reimagining Gov 2.0" for the 21st Century, about the goal of relaunching FCC.gov by the end of the year.

Today: Gary Bivings and Political strategist Joe Trippi will discuss how to create campaign buzz on the radio show Digital Politics at 3 p.m. EST. Listen on wsRadio.com. 

6 percent: The rate of unemployment for computer scientists in the second quarter of the year. The New York Times reports that the tech sector has been slow to hire: http://nyti.ms/djR6R6

CAN'T-MISS NEWS

Industry notes

Online travel firms raising concerns about Google's acquisition of ITA. The Wall Street Journal reports several online travel firms have expressed concerns to government lawyers regarding Google's proposed acquisition of ITA Software, whose software is used by some of the most popular airfare search sites. The government is interested in whether rivals would still be able to use ITA's software and if Google would use its dominance of the search market to steer Web users to its travel site. http://bit.ly/aOwz5h

Ex-HP CEO Hurd joins Oracle as co-president. Oracle announced Monday that former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Mark Hurd has joined the company as president and been named to the board of directors. Hurd, who will report to Oracle co-founder and chief executive Larry Ellison, resigned from HP last month after a sexual harassment probe found he had violated the company's standards of business conduct in relation to former actress and HP contractor Jodie Fisher. Charles Phillips, one of Oracle's two current presidents, will resign to make room for Hurd. "Mark did a brilliant job at HP and I expect he'll do even better at Oracle," Ellison said in a statement. "There is no executive in the IT world with more relevant experience than Mark." 

"I believe Oracle's strategy of combining software with hardware will enable Oracle to beat IBM in both enterprise servers and storage," Hurd said. "I'm excited to be a part of the most innovative technology team in the IT industry."

Google suggests Texas search concerns originate with Microsoft. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has opened a probe into whether Google ranks its search listings with an eye toward nicking the competition, the company announced in a Friday blog post that suggested the concerns have a major sponsor: Microsoft. http://bit.ly/9MCTfy

SAID

"We're not American idol."

—New York Times executive editor Bill Keller clarifying that the Grey Lady is not the popular singing competition. He was discussing the editors' stance on using Web traffic metrics to guide editorial decisions. http://nyti.ms/dx4EOG

WATERCOOLER

ZOMBIES — The U.S. is getting tough on texting while driving, but Australia may have us beat. Some Australians are worried about the use of technology while traveling on another form of transportation: foot. "Death by iPod is being blamed as a contributing factor to the 25 percent rise in the number of pedestrian fatalities in [the Australian state of] New South Wales," reports The Age."The 'iPod zombie trance'' people get into when walking, driving or pedaling around listening to their mobile devices is being blamed for an increase in collisions and even deaths in Europe and the US." Harold Scruby, president of the Pedestrian Council of Australia, called for new laws to penalize walkers when they use technology while walking. http://bit.ly/9zPmV1

—Darren Goode contributed to this report.