The Federal Communications Commission has approved Verizon's plan to sell 4.8 million landlines in mostly rural areas to Frontier Communications, the regulator announced Friday.

According to the FCC the transferred lines are primarily located in rural and smaller-city areas and will allow Frontier to significantly expand the availability of broadband Internet connections in the affected areas.

"This transaction -- which includes significant deployment commitments frmo Frontier -- will help advance the goals of the National Broadband Plan by bringing broadband to millions of consumers, small businesses, and anchor institutions in 14 states across the West, Midwest, and South," said the FCC in a statement.

FCC chairman Julius Genachowski said the transaction has its risks but ultimately is beneficial because of Frontier's committment to providing high-speed Internet access in rural areas. He also praised the company for giving the FCC unprecedented access to its plans for broadband deployment.

"This transaction should provide substantial public interest benefits, but it won't by itself solve broadband challenges in the areas to be transferred, much less all of rural America," Genachowski said in a statement.

FCC Commissioners Michael Copps and Mignon Clyburn called the decision to approve the $8.6 billion deal "wrenching" but said they ultimately decided in favor of the sale because Verizon has shown little interest in developing rural markets while Frontier "has shown enthusiasm in serving rural areas". The pair also expect the Frontier deal to create jobs in the affected rural communities.

Minnesota senators argues the company is wrong to increase termination fees for iPhones and Blackberries.

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A House Judiciary subcommittee hearing this week produced a "made for YouTube" moment.

The panel was holding a hearing about administrative support for the federal judicial system. Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer appeared as witnesses. 

Subcommittee Chairman Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) asked the duo: "Have either of y'all ever considered tweeting or twitting?"

"I don't even know what it is," Scalia said, drawing a chuckle from lawmakers. "To tell you the truth, I have heard it talked about. But, you know, my wife calls me Mr. Clueless — I don't know about tweeting."

Breyer seemed more knowledgeable about the service, used by hundreds of lawmakers and once by President Barack Obama. He said he first noticed it during opposition protests in Iran over the election there last summer.

"My son said, 'Go look at this.' And oh, my goodness. I mean, there were some Twitters, I called them, there were people there with photographs as it went on. And I sat there for two hours absolutely hypnotized. And I thought, 'My goodness, this is now, for better or for worse, I think maybe for many respects for better, in that instance certainly, it's not the same world. It's instant and people react instantly.

"It's not something that's going to go away," Breyer added.

WATCH:

Cross-posted from the Twitter Room

Congressman says consumers "have the right to now exactly how Google" collects their data.

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The Army announced Friday it will establish a new headquarters for its Cyber Command forces inside the capital region by October 2010 at the latest.

The Army Forces Cyber Command is the Army's portion of the U.S. Cyber Command, under the direction of National Security Agency chief Keith Alexander. The command coordinates the country's network defenses and oversees any offensive cyber attacks by the United States. The total command will be based at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, and is expected to exceed 21,000 soldiers and civilians. It will include units from each of the four branches of the armed services.

Alexander was confirmed last week but his post won't become active until the command is ready to begin operations later this year. There was concern among some lawmakers about Alexander, as the head of NSA, running a military command, but those were mostly allayed during his appearance in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee last month.

At that hearing Alexander said the rules of cyber attacks would be similar to those governing ground warfare, which usually call for a proportional response to incitement. Potential targets include the networks of foreign military commands, power grids, financial institutions and telecommunications networks, so long as the targets are authorized by the president. He did acknowledge, however, that there is a great deal of uncharted territory with regards to cyber policy, laws and doctrine.

Supporters say Alexander's role at the NSA will give the new Cyber Command exceptional leverage and influence. The Army indicated Friday that it expects to have everything in place for the October deadline.

The Federal Trade Commission has greenlighted Google's purchase of mobile advertising company AdMob despite antitrust concerns due to increased competition in the mobile ad market from vendors like Apple Inc.

On Friday the FTC announced it has closed its investigation of Google’s $750 million acquisition of AdMob after deciding that Apple's recent foray into the mobile advertising market indicates competition in the sector will be robust.

"As a result of Apple's entry [into the market], AdMob's success to date on the iPhone platform is unlikely to be an accurate predictor of AdMob's competitive significance going forward, whether AdMob is owned by Google or not," the FTC said in a statement.

The commission voted 5-0 to approve the deal despite earlier concerns that the purchase would give Google an unfair advantage in the mobile advertising market. Apple's December 2009 acquisition of the mobile advertising firm Quattro Wireless and subsequent launch of its own advertising network iAd appears to have been the crucial factor in the FTC approving the sale.

"The Commission has reason to believe that Apple quickly will become a strong mobile advertising network competitor. Apple not only has extensive relationships with applications developers and users, but also is able to offer targeted ads (heretofore a strength of AdMob) by leveraging proprietary user data gleaned from users of Apple mobile devices."

The FTC also noted that a number of other companies appear to be developing or acquiring smartphone platforms to better compete against the iPhone and Google’s Android, and those firms would have a strong incentive to encourage competition among mobile advertising networks.

"In any nascent market there will be uncertainty about the path of competition and the durability of early leads in market share. In order to fully protect consumers, however, the Commission must subject mergers in nascent markets to the same level of antitrust scrutiny as in other markets...had the facts supported a challenge here, the Commission would not have hesitated to act to preserve competition in the mobile ad network market."

On Friday the White House relaunched Data.gov, its online clearinghouse for government data.

The site launched one year ago with the aim of providing the public and developers with a one-stop shop for all federal data feeds and databases. After starting with only 47 data sets, the site now boasts more than 270,000 on a wide range of topics. Traffic has increased from 2 million hits May 21, 2009, to an expected 98 million today, according to federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra.

While there have been some complaints about the quality and formatting of data on the site, the high level of public interest indicates the administration's efforts are striking a chord. According to the Pew Center 40 percent of adults on the Internet use the Web to find government information.

Kundra told Nextgov the site's appeal to software developers was unexpected; the site has inspired hundreds of applications that make use of various environmental, economic and other data sets.

"The birth of the community of innovators — that's far exceeded my expectations," Kundra said. But it hasn't all been easy. "We wanted to release [U.S. Patent and Trademark Office] data, but its systems were decades old."

Kundra also indicated that his plans for the site are not yet met; he hopes to expand the number of applications featured, and recently upgraded the search capabilities by implementing a new tool powered by Microsoft's Bing.

According to Nick Hoover the site also recently added Jeanne Holm, chief knowledge architect for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to help with outreach to developers and the public. Holm's job will be to gauge what the public wants from Data.gov and said the outreach would involve social networking.

Top House Democrats launched a campaign this week to help members better use Facebook, Twitter and other social networks ahead of the 2010 midterms — a year after House Republicans unveiled a similar effort of their own.

At the forefront of House Democrats' new approach to outreach is the New Media Working Group, debuted by Reps. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) on Thursday. The working group, the two lawmakers wrote earlier this week, is meant to ensure the party remains "at the forefront of using new media in politics."

"The Working Group continues the proud Democratic tradition of using the Internet to include the voices of working and middle-class Americans," Honda and Pingree said. "In ensuring that Democrats are being innovative with their websites and with tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, we hope to reach out to Americans who might not otherwise be heard."

In the coming weeks, the Working Group plans to hold "individual consultations for all Democratic Members of the House," Honda's office told Hillicon Valley this week, in order to help staff tailor their Facebook, Twitter and YouTube campaigns to their districts' compositions and voters' demographics.

The group will also train members "to establish and share new media best practices," while serving as a liaison between top social media companies and congressional Democrats, Honda's staff added.

"We have held briefings with industry leaders like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Google to ensure that our members know the best ways to use these tools and the latest features they can take advantage of," both Honda and Pingree said Thursday. "Fostering partnerships with these companies will mean our members have a greater say and are having a more substantive and important dialogue online with their constituents, and it will open doors to innovation and creativity as new media evolves and changes."

But House Democrats' latest foray into new media arrives slightly more than a year after their Republican counterparts introduced their own New Media Caucus. That effort, led by Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio), also prides itself on teaching lawmakers how to best use social media tools.

What we're following on the morning of Friday, May 21

Klobuchar joins chorus of critics in Google privacy flap (The Hill) — "Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) on Thursday signaled Google's recent apology fails to address lingering questions surrounding how and why its Street View team accidentally collected an untold amount of personal e-mails and documents. ... The search giant revealed last week that its infamous cars assembling photos for Google Maps' street-level feature collected not only the location of Wi-Fi networks, as planned, but also e-mail and documents transmitted over some of those connections. ... That admission immediately generated worldwide backlash, as authorities in Germany launched an investigation, U.S. citizens pushed for a class-action lawsuit and members of Congress all but asked federal regulators to open their own inquiry.  ... Klobuchar joined that growing chorus of Google critics Thursday — in a letter to CEO Eric Schmidt, she pressed the company to answer a score of privacy questions and better detail "how it plans to protect the privacy of individuals whose data has been collected and stored."

FLASHBACK: Markey, Barton ask FTC to review the matter... 

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