Good morning tech

Executive notes

South Korean ambassador touts net-neutrality policies. Han Duk-soo, the ambassador from South Korea, said in a speech on Tuesday that net-neutrality protections constitute a critical policy for the wireless and wireline broadband landscape. http://bit.ly/bZe1om

White House to reform federal IT procurement. The Obama administration is developing new guidelines for how federal agencies should purchase and install computers and other technology, according to a memo released Tuesday. Federal Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients sent an update on the president’s management agenda to senior government managers on Tuesday. Zients said the administration will develop a new framework of policies over the next two months that agencies will use to purchase, install and oversee major information technology systems. http://bit.ly/bF4bjZ

Google wants the FCC to compel more ISP data. Google filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Monday recommending that it gather and verify more information from Internet service providers, using existing rules to force broadband providers to be more transparent about their network management practices. http://bit.ly/bGNk9R

Industry notes

Qualcomm chief: Wireless industry ‘caught by surprise’ about data traffic. Qualcomm chief executive Paul Jacobs said the wireless industry did not anticipate the explosion in data traffic on their networks as people began accessing the Internet on their mobile phones. AT&T is talking about 5,000 percent increases in their traffic in a span of three years,” he said. “But guess what, it’s not stopping at all.” http://bit.ly/99C6Mr

Trade groups spar over proposed mandate for FM radio on cell phones. In the latest phase of a battle of unusual bedfellows, wireless providers are panning survey result released by broadcasters on Tuesday that suggest American consumers would welcome access to FM radio on their cell phones. http://bit.ly/a5EEKe

Study says broadband prices haven’t dropped. A new report from Kellogg School of Management professor Shane Greenstein found the price of broadband Internet access has falled less than ten percent over the past five years, despite the rising ubiquity of the service. Greenstein blamed a 2003 decision to leave broadband regulation up to the companies themselves, noting that most urban areas have at most two wireline providers that compete for home users. http://bit.ly/bN7ond’

Twitter is revamped and simplified. “Twitter unveiled a new Web site on Tuesday that it hopes will be user friendly,” the New York Times reports. “The redesigned site, which will be available to all users in the next few weeks, makes it simpler to see information about the authors of Twitter posts, conversations among Twitter users, and the photos and videos that posts link to.” http://nyti.ms/a6AZzl

24 percent. The share of American adults who use the applications on the cell phones, according to a new report from Pew. “The apps market seems somewhat ahead of a majority of adult cell phone users,” said a Pew researcher. http://bit.ly/d0m5rN

SCHEDULE

10 a.m. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing: “Prohibiting obscene animal crush videos.” Preview here. Dirksen Senate Office Building 226.

1 p.m. House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee looks at domestic minor sex trafficking, including the Internet dimension of the problem.  Craigslist witness to testify; preview here. 2141 Rayburn House Office Building.

3:30 – 5 p.m. The New America Foundation hosts “Internet and Innovation: Why network architecture matters.” Speakers include former FCC senior advisor Colin Crowell, Stanford Law professor Barbara van Schewick, Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn, Free Press research director Derek Turner, and New America Foundation technology director Sascha Meinrath.

SAID

“We should not confuse success with market power, and we should recognize the limited circumstances in which regulation is appropriate.”

-Center for American Progress senior fellow David Balto, arguing that calls to regulate Google are unfounded and that we should not conflate “big with bad.”

WATERCOOLER

EVANESCO—The Internet may be changing our private lives (or encroaching on them, depending how you feel about it), but one man has figured out how to use the Web to effect the ultimate in privacy: disappearance. Frank Ahearn is a professional skip-tracer, which means he locates people for investigators and lawyers. He has penned a book on how to “erase your digital footprint, leave false trails, and vanish without a trace.”

His advice for escaping the digital footprint left by your social media profiles: “Ahearn suggests to start deviating your information, slowly changing it over to bogus information which will be picked up by other sites, until you can fake your online death. Even if a private eye looks for you, false remnants of your data will be the only trail,” Network World says. http://bit.ly/cW4fIg