Good Morning Tech

Sen. Menendez jabs Fiorina on jobs. Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (N.J.)
took a swipe at GOP Senate candidate Carly Fiorina on Thursday,
reminding reporters of job losses during her tenure as head of
Hewlett-Packard. Fiorina presided over HP’s merger with Compaq and during her tenure the computer maker shed 32,000 jobs. She is currently engaged in a tight race with incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

Privacy caucus wants answers on how sites track consumers online. Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas), the co-chairs of the House Privacy Caucus, sent letters to 15 companies
Thursday demanding answers on how the firms collect and use information
from visitors to their websites. The letters were a response to reports from the Wall Street
Journal detailing the increasing use of online tracking
technologies that collect and store personal information about consumers
without their knowledge or consent.

Executive notes

Clinton says U.S. will meet with U.A.E. over Blackberry ban. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Thursday that the U.S. will meet with the United Arab Emirates to discuss the country’s recent decision to ban some Blackberry services, citing security concerns. The news comes one day after Lebanon joined India, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia in requesting access to the device’s secure servers to monitor messages for national security threats. Clinton said the U.S. is also working with other countries on the issue. Ontario-based Research In Motion has denied it gives any government special access to its servers and claims to be unable to provide any single customer’s encryption key.

Said.

“Of course they are shifting their stance. They now have a different definition of net neutrality than the one they’ve been advocating for the past five years.”

-Public Knowledge co-founder and president Gigi Sohn on whether Google is backtracking on its commitment to net neutrality.