Breaches by AT&T and Google that jeopardized private user information are "each worrisome in [their] own way" and amount to "different kinds of intrusions," Federal Communications Commission (FCC) consumer bureau chief Joel Gurin said in a blog post Friday morning.

In what appears to be the FCC's first public comment on a privacy breach by Google, Gurin writes that the search giant's privacy error "raises important concerns." Google has said that it may have collected private user information running over Wi-Fi networks.

The FCC's public statement on the Google incident follows concern raised on Capitol Hill over the breach.

"Whether intentional or not, collecting information sent over Wi-Fi networks clearly infringes on consumer privacy," Gurin writes.

He adds that users can boost their security against breaches like Google's right away — by being careful what they send over unencrypted Wi-Fi networks.

Meanwhile, Gurin reiterates the agency's concern over an AT&T security breach that allowed hackers to view the e-mail addresses of over 100,000 iPad users (reportedly including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel). The incident "appears to be a classic security breach," Gurin said.

The AT&T error is exactly the sort that has the FCC worked up about cybersecurity, accordingly to Gurin, now that the agency is "addressing cybersecurity as a high priority."

Apps makers are frustrated by the dispute between Apple and Google over the iPhone manufacturer's new ad policies, according to a public radio report aired by WAMU. 

"It feels like Mom and Dad are fighting, and I want to put my hands over my ears and wait for it to stop," said apps maker Rob Terrell of the company Touch Centric.

Apple's new terms could keep Google and other rivals from "placing ads inside iPhone and iPad applications. The search giant calls Apple's proposed rules a threat to healthy competition," the report said. 

For Terrell, the situation means delaying the release of a new app. "Touchcentric was set to release a free iPad app this week. The app would have contained ads placed by Google through its advertising arm, AdMob. The ads would have paid for the cost of developing the app," the report said.

"Now we can't do that," Terrell told the reporter. "And unfortunately, Apple doesn't offer the iAd system for iPad applications [until July], so we're kind of stuck."

It's a morning of mea culpas from the big companies who rule our online lives. AT&T said it was sorry for a security breach that allowed a hacker group to access over 114,000 e-mail addresses of iPad users. That didn't stop the FBI from saying it will launch an investigation into the breach. The carrier, meanwhile, pledged to notify all iPad users whose e-mail addresses may have been accessed, according to the AP. The list reportedly included the e-mail addresses of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The breach was concerning enough to prompt FCC comment. 

New York's mayor, however, shrugged off the incident in remarks in the AP. "It shouldn't be pretty hard to figure out my e-mail address," Bloomberg said, "and if you send me an e-mail and I don't want to read it, I don't open it. To me it wasn't that big of a deal."

Elsewhere in privacy debacles: Google is sorry, too. It said so in a letter to House Energy & Commerce leaders about a major privacy breach in which it collected information running over Wi-Fi networks. Read excerpts from the letter in Hillicon Valley. The company blamed bad code embedded in software that helps it collect information about Wi-Fi networks. The Internet giant said it may have collected personal user information, but maintained it did not break the law. "We emphasize that being lawful and being the right thing to do are two different things, and that collecting payload data was a mistake for which we are profoundly sorry," the company said in a letter penned by Pablo Chavez, public policy director. 

If the abundance of security breach articles are making you long for 1993, perhaps take heart in a WSJ story on self-appointed cyber-watchdogs who work to find security flaws online. The piece focuses on privacy errors located in Google and Facebook tracked down by sometimes-unpaid security obsessives. "We're the good guys in this," one of the watchdogs tells the WSJ. "We're trying to help people." But perhaps don't take heart: Some efforts have received criticism, including those by a watchdog who re-broadcasts user data allegedly in an effort to make a statement about privacy. 

WHO, WHERE

PAUL MISENER, LAWRENCE STRICKLING, DOROTHY ATTWOOD, GIGI SOHN, PAUL GALLANT and PHILIP VERVEER will be at the the Fairfax Hotel at Embassy Row Friday for a summit on broadband.

ALEC ROSS, ANDREW MCLAUGHLIN, ROBERT ZITTRAIN, ROBERT BOORSTIN, WENDY SELTZER and MICHAEL MACLEOD-BALL are expected at a Media Access Project forum about online filtering at Dickstein Shapiro. 

CAN'T-MISS NEWS

NEW BILL WOULD GIVE PRESIDENT POWER TO STOP "CYBER 9/11": A bipartisan cybersecurity bill introduced Thursday would give the president new authority to declare a national "cyber emergency" and take steps to protect critical assets during an attack. "We cannot afford to wait for a 'cyber 9/11' before our government finally realizes the importance of protecting our digital resources, limiting our vulnerabilities and mitigating the consequences of penetrations of our networks," Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said in a floor statement introducing the bill with Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.).

Google is determined to "learn all the lessons we can" from a major privacy breach.

Democratic FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn had a message for local broadcasters Thursday: Embrace the Internet.

"I do not believe that community broadcasters should be tied only to your medium," Clyburn said at a conference in St. Paul, Minn. "In today’s world, radio is a technology that provides your message, but does not have to be the only technology that does so." 

Clyburn said broadcasters who get online will be rewarded for their effort. "As trusted sources in your community, you will have a leg up in developing local content online to complement your bread-and-butter work on the air."

The remarks could be viewed as edgy for an address to broadcasters, who can be sensitive about the Internet. As some radio and television programming migrates online, many traditional stations are cash-strapped and striving not to be seen as obsolete.

Clyburn made sure to give a nod to those concerns, telling broadcasters that they remain more important than the Web when it comes to getting community information.

"If you really want to know what is going on in your local community, where do you turn?" she said. "For most of us, it certainly is not the Internet."

She said that despite the rise of hyper-local websites, "today is not the day" when the Web surpasses broadcasting for content about the neighborhood. 

The FBI plans to investigate AT&T's security breach that allowed intruders to access the e-mail addresses of more than one hundred thousand iPad users, according to Investors Business Daily.

“The FBI is aware of the possible computer intrusion and has opened an investigation to address the potential cyber-threat,” Lindsay Godwin, an FBI spokeswoman in Washington D.C., told IBD. 

For more on the incident, look here. 

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) on Thursday accused NASA leadership of skirting the law to shut down the Constellation human spaceflight program. 

Hutchison released a statement in response to an announcement from NASA that it would "pace, rather than terminate" work on Constellation contracts due to budget shortfalls.

“For months, NASA’s leadership has claimed they are not working to subvert Constellation despite information to the contrary," Hutchison said in a statement.

Hutchison, a strong supporter of the Constellation program, has been a harsh critic of President Barack Obama's plan to end the manned spaceflight program. She recently called for an inspector general investigation of NASA's decision to reassign Constellation's program manager. The battle over Constellation has been heated, with lawmakers from both parties in the Senate asserting that only Congress has the authority to end the manned spaceflight program.

*Updated at 6:41 with FCC comment.*

In rare commentary on a private sector security incident, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a concerned statement Thursday about an AT&T privacy error that reportedly allowed intruders to access the e-mail addresses of 114,000 iPad users, noting that such events "violate consumer privacy" and "undermine trust in America's communications infrastructure."

Jamie Barnett, the agency's public safety chief, said he is "concerned" about reports of a security breach to AT&T's network "that exposed the personal data of more than a hundred thousand iPad users."

The choice to issue a statement breaks with the FCC's usual posture toward security incidents. A major privacy breach by Google, in which the Internet company collected user data traveling over Wi-Fi networks, did not prompt an FCC statement despite raising alarm bells all over Capitol Hill. 

The different treatment of Google and AT&T is sure to raise eyebrows, as the search giant is often pegged as a darling of the administration. Google has supported many of the FCC's initiatives, including net neutrality, while AT&T has spent millions of lobbying dollars trying to run them into the ground. 

One possibility, however, is that the distinction lies in the difference between a cybersecurity breach effected by intruders and a privacy breach allegedly carried out by accident. The FCC has pushed to forge a role for itself in cybersecurity issues as various parts of the federal government--from the Justice Department to the Defense Department--scout out ground on the issue. 

The FCC devoted a chunk of the National Broadband Plan to cybersecurity and has proposed a cybersecurity certification program for access providers. 

UPDATE:

An FCC spokesman weighed in that the AT&T incident appears to be an intentional cybersecurity breach and that it made the statement as part of its ongoing attention to security matters. He said the agency's cybersecurity efforts have also included a push for outage reporting and realtime monitoring for breaches. He declined to comment on Google.

"These are complex matters with a number of variables factored in and it clearly shows the need for increased cyber security measures in various sectors of America," he said. "It will take a national effort to make this work."

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) has come out against Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski's plan to boost the agency's authority over broadband access providers, adding to the growing chorus of Democratic opposition to the controversial plan.

In a letter to the chairman Thursday, Stabenow urged Genachowski to wait for Congress to update the Communications Act rather than locating more power through a regulatory maneuver that would give it increased authority to police broadband access providers. 

"I urge the Commission to withdraw its Title II classification effort and work with the Chairs of the appropriate Congressional committees to develop [a] suitable and clear statute that will help us achieve our national broadband goals," she wrote.  

The chairmen of the authorizing committees in Congress have proposed to begin work on updating the act this year, but they say their work is compatible with Genachowski's effort. 

Genachowski said at a hearing Wednesday that he takes congressional concerns "very seriously," but added that the need to act on the commission's agenda is "urgent." Experts says updating the Communications Act could take years. 

Most members of Congress oppose the Democratic chairman's plan, including — with Stabenow — 76 Democrats.