THE LEDE: AT&T argued on Thursday that it would be illegal for the Federal Communications Commission to follow the Justice Department's advice on the upcoming auction of airwave licenses.

In a filing with the FCC, AT&T argued that the Justice Department is asking the agency to rig the auctions in favor of Sprint and T-Mobile, the smaller of the four national carriers. 

"It is surprising that the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice would even propose measures that are so nakedly designed to help specific companies," AT&T wrote.

The company argued that it would be illegal for the FCC to violate the public's interest to boost particular competitors.

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A pair of Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday called for regulators to open an inquiry into a website that falsely claims the government offers taxpayer-funded cell phones for free.

In a letter sent to the head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Ben Lujan (D-N.M.) argue that the website Obamaphone.net makes statements about a federal phone subsidy program that could lead people to mistakenly believe the site is affiliated with the government. The two Democrats also claim the site lacks a clear privacy policy statement that says whether it collects personal information from users and whether it shares that information with third parties.

"Given the FTC's responsibility to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive acts and practices, we urge the FTC to conduct an immediate inquiry into the above-mentioned website,"  Eshoo and Lujan write to FTC Chairman Edith Ramirez. 

The Senate advanced a bill to allow states to collect online sales tax and will vote on it May 6.

Google on Thursday said it received requests from governments "in more places than ever" to remove political-focused content on its Web services during the second half of 2012.

Google Legal Director Susan Infantino said in a company blog post that Google received court orders from several countries during the time period to remove blog posts that criticized government officials or associates.

From July to December last year, Google received 2,285 government requests to remove more than 24,000 pieces of content posted by users on its Web services, according to its latest "Transparency Report."  That's up from the first six months of 2012, when Google received 1,811 government requests to remove slightly more than 18,000 pieces of content. 

The National Governors Association has a message for Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform: The online sales tax bill on the Senate floor does not violate ATR’s no-tax pledge.

The NGA, which backs the sales tax bill, noted in a Thursday statement that the Congressional Budget Office had ruled that the Marketplace Fairness Act had no impact on federal revenues.

The group also said that the anti-tax pledge that the ATR administers – and the vast majority of congressional Republicans have signed – calls on lawmakers to oppose marginal rate increases or the net reduction of tax credits and deductions.

“Marketplace Fairness does neither. It is not a new tax or a tax increase,” the NGA said in its statement. “It clearly does not violate the pledge. In fact, the American for Tax Reform themselves admitted to leadership of the National Governors Association that this was not a violation. To say anything else is disingenuous.

“This is a last ditch effort to undermine legislation that upholds the principles of federalism and levels the playing field between Main Street and e-street,” the association added.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn wants to know whether the bombing suspects were the recipients of a federal phone subsidy.

The bill sponsored by Chairman Leahy and Sen. Lee heads to the Senate floor.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) objected to an amendment to the online sales tax bill from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Thursday.

Baucus, who serves as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said it was a "travesty" that the Marketplace Fairness Act was not going through his committee before coming to the Senate floor.

"This is a travesty, the way this bill is being considered," Baucus said.

The European Commission on Thursday unveiled a set of concessions that Google has offered to address concerns about anti-competitive behavior.

The agency asked for input from Google's competitors and other interested parties to determine whether to accept the commitments and close its investigation.

Google's competitors complain that the Internet giant is manipulating its search results to ensure that its own services, such as YouTube and Google Maps, appear above those of its rivals. The competitors argue Google has a monopoly on search and shouldn't be allowed to favor its own services.