Privacy hearing: The House subcommittee on manufacturing and trade held a hearing Thursday addressing the White House proposals on privacy known as the “privacy bill of rights.”

Lawmakers grilled Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz and National Telecommunications and Information Administration head Lawrence Strickling about how best to balance consumer protection and industry innovation.

When asked what they imagine as “baseline privacy legislation,” which both agencies have supported, Leibowitz said he believes baseline legislation protects consumer privacy without hurting innovation

Strickling said he believes that enacting the policies outlined in the White House report would suffice, and would make “a 10 to 15 page piece of legislation.”

Yahoo adds do not track tool: Yahoo announced Thursday that it will implement a “do not track” tool on its global network. The tool will include Yahoo’s site as well as its Right Media and Interclick properties.

“With this new feature, Yahoo! continues its leadership in privacy innovation while continuing to create the free online services consumers demand that are made possible through advertising,” Yahoo wrote in a release.

The release gave few details about the tool, saying that it will be available by early summer, and that it will “provide a simple step for consumers to express their ad targeting preferences” to Yahoo.

LightSquared: The Federal Communications Commission released documents about LightSquared to the House Energy and Commerce committee, FCC spokeswoman Tammy Sun confirmed Thursday.

The committee has questioned how the broadband company got so far through the approval process when its network raised serious concerns about interference with GPS satellites.

Facebook IPO set for May?: Facebook is reportedly targeting its initial public offering for May as expected, according to an unnamed “person familiar with the matter” who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. The company filed to go public in February and was widely expected to make its market debut sometime in late spring or early summer.

The company is stopping trading on secondary markets, Bloomberg reported, in preparation for the initial public offering. Facebook declined to comment on the report.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has gathered some media attention this week with his vacation to China, leading many to believe he is working with a Chinese company such as Baidu to break into the Chinese market. Facebook is currently blocked in China.

Apple’s Cook goes to China: Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook met with China’s Vice Premier Li Keqiang on Tuesday, solidifying ties in one of the company’s fastest-growing markets.

Cook met with Li to discuss intellectual property issues. According to the state-run news agency Xinhua, Cook and Li discussed how the Chinese government could work with multinational corporations to improve cooperation. The meeting was framed as a sign that the Chinese government is building a relationship with Apple.

Cybersecurity: The House subcommittee on communications and technology discussed cybersecurity on the Hill Wednesday, to examine threats to security networks with a focus on public sector response.

The hearing came as FBI executive assistant director Shawn Henry warned that the country is “not winning” its war against computer hackers in a report in The Wall Street Journal He said he has been frustrated by companies that do not appear to be taking cyber threats seriously.

On Tuesday, Reps. Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) proposed a new piece of cybersecurity legislation that is aimed at improving communication between the public and private sectors on cybersecurity issues. The bill, called the SECURE IT Act, drew swift criticism from Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) who called it “misguided” for relying on private companies to propose voluntary safety standards.

FCC reform bills: The White House came out against the bills currently in the House aimed at overhauling the operations at the Federal Communications Commission.

As the Hill reported, the White House said in a statement that one of the bills, the FCC Process Reform Act, would “in effect, create a separate Administrative Procedure Act (APA) for the FCC,” the White House said in a statement. “For more than 60 years, the APA has provided a uniform framework to guide decisionmaking by all federal administrative agencies.”

In a statement, Reps. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) said Monday that a report on the FCC’s workload showed that the agency has over 10,000 items pending consideration and that the bills would reduce that backlog.

Walden, the chairman of the House subcommittee on technology said, “These workload issues highlight the need for good process, and that’s why it’s important we move forward with process reform legislation now, so that the agency locks in the gains it has already made and so that the public will see it continue to improve into the future.”

RockYougame site: The Federal Trade Commission announced Tuesday that it had settled charges with the gaming site RockYou, which allegedly allowed hackers to see the personal information of 32 million users. The agency charged that the gaming site had violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule (COPPA) and collected information from 179,000 children.

The settlement prevents the company from making “future deceptive claims” about its privacy and security, requires the site to create and maintain a data security program and requires it to pay $250,000 to settle the COPPA charges.

FTC report reaction: Lawmakers who have already been vocal advocates of privacy legislation were quick to point out that the FTC report underscores a need for quick action on a baseline privacy bill.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who co-authored Internet privacy legislation with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the report should encourage Congress to act quickly on privacy.

“This report again affirms the value of setting a national standard for the collection, use, and distribution of personal information,” Kerry said in a statement. “This discussion is taking place at home and abroad, and we’d be wise to act now rather than defer decisions until future Congresses.”

Privacy advocates largely applauded the report, though some said they would have liked to see stronger action from the FTC.

In a statement, the Electronic Privacy Information Center said, “[The] framework is not as extensive as the White House Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights and depends on industry self-regulation. EPIC previously commented on an earlier draft of the framework, pointing out that the FTC ‘mistakenly endorses self-regulation and ‘notice and choice,’ and fails to explain why it has not used its current Section 5 authority to better safeguard the interests of consumers.’”

Facebook files to drop Ceglia suit: Facebook announced Monday that it has filed to have a lawsuit filed by Paul Ceglia against it dismissed. The social network released information Monday that it alleges proves that Ceglia is lying about striking a deal with Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg early in the network’s development for 50 percent or more of the company.

“Today’s motion proves what Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg have emphatically stated all along: this case is a fraud,” said Facebook attorney Orin Snyder. “The motion asks the Court to dismiss this fraudulent lawsuit, and demonstrates that Ceglia has forged documents, destroyed evidence, and abused the judicial system in furtherance of his criminal scheme. Ceglia must be held accountable.”

FTC privacy: The Federal Trade Commission on Monday outlined a framework for how companies should address consumer privacy, pledging that consumers will have “an easy to use and effective” “Do Not Track” option by the end of the year.

The FTC’s report comes a little over a month after the White House released a “privacy bill of rights” that called on companies to be more transparent about privacy and grant consumers greater access to their data but that stopped short of backing a do not track rule.

The FTC said it will work with the White House and industry to create a do not track mechanism.

FTC launches new technology blog: The Federal Trade Commission has launched a technology blog and Twitter account, the agency announced Friday.

In the inaugural blog post — titled with a programming joke, “Hello World” — the FTC’s chief technologist Ed Felten said that the agency’s goal is to “talk about technology in a way that is sophisticated enough to be interesting to hardcore techies, but straightforward enough to be accessible to the broad public” and will have a conversational tone.

Apple’s iPad shows tech, carrier disconnect: Apple’s new iPad was supposed to usher in a new era of watching movies and television shows on the go, but has hit a data capacity snag, The Washington Post reported.Consumers are running into their data limits quickly, leaving them to wonder whether they should pay more for data or hold back on using their devices to the fullest.

“My view has always been that video via cellular was always a fantasy,” Craig Moffett, a senior analyst at Bernstein Research, told The Post. “The networks simply aren’t designed to handle it.”

Justice Department to retain data for longer: The Obama administration approved a plan that would allow counterterrorism officials to retain information on U.S. citizens for a longer period of time, The Washington Post reported. Officials will be able to retain the information even if the citizens have no known connection to terrorism.

The changes allow the National Counterterrorism Center, the intelligence community’s clearinghouse for terrorism data, to keep information for up to five years.

T-Mobile layoffs: T-Mobile USA said Thursday that it will lay off 1,900 workers from two dozen call-center facilities.

The Associated Press reported that the centers slated for closure include those in Allentown, Pa., and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., as well as two centers in Texas, one in Kansas, one in Colorado and one in Oregon.

“These are not easy steps to take, but they are necessary to realize efficiency in order to invest for growth,” Philipp Humm, T-Mobile’s CEO and president, said in a statement. In February, the company announced that it was overhauling its wireless data network to include LTE, following its failed attempt to merge with AT&T.

Facebook weighs in on password controversy: Facebook has joined the debate on whether employers should be able to ask applicants for their account passwords, saying that users should never share their account information with anyone.

“As a user, you shouldn’t be forced to share your private information and communications just to get a job,” Facebook’s chief privacy officer, Erin Egan, wrote in a Friday morning blog post. “And as the friend of a user, you shouldn’t have to worry that your private information or communications will be revealed to someone you don’t know and didn’t intend to share with just because that user is looking for a job.”