Twitter is facing a backlash after it said it would selectively censor itself, the Guardian reports.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship is dueling with hackers, Yahoo News reports.

And Motley Fool wonders if the iPhone is killing AT&T.

More of Today's e-Reads can be found on our Tech page.

White House Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra has resigned, the White House said Friday.

"As the federal government's first Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra did groundbreaking work to bring our government into the 21st century," President Obama said in a statement. He credited Chopra with finding innovative ways to use technology to engage Americans.

The statement did not say why Chopra is leaving or what his plans are.

Chopra oversees the administration's technology agenda, from cybersecurity and job creation to health IT and broadband. He also helped author the administration's position on recent anti-piracy legislation. As the economy continued to suffer, Chopra focused on many innovation issues.

Chopra came to the White House in 2009 after three years as secretary of technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Former GOP social media consultant George Alafoginis will join Facebook's 2012 campaign team to focus on advertising efforts.

Alafoginis most recently worked for the consulting group New Media Strategies, where a pictorial bio describes him as a "crowd surfer" and a "jetsetter" who has celebrated two birthdays while at the firm. Alafoginis also previously worked for the Republican National Committee as deputy director for Online Strategy & Technology Deployment.

Facebook has launched a range of Election 2012 features, including a partnership with Politico, a presidential debate with NBC, and a politics webpage.

Facebook also conducted an analysis of reaction to this week's State of the Union speech.

Newt Gingrich's proposal to establish a permanent American colony on the moon elicited sharp rebukes and jokes from his rivals for the GOP presidential nomination at a debate in Florida on Thursday.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said the plan is simply pandering to Florida interests, and said he would fire anyone who suggested such an idea to him.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, meanwhile, joked that he would send politicians to the moon.

The clash highlighted the conflicting values that brought down America's most recent efforts to revisit the moon.

President George W. Bush launched a moon program with a goal similar to that proposed by Gingrich, but budget realities and a lack of political will led President Obama to shelve the project in 2010.

More on how Gingrich's ideas jibe with old plans can be found here.

It's been a month since its bid to buy T-Mobile USA went south, and AT&T made clear Thursday that it hasn't forgotten the Federal Communications Commission's role in the deal's demise.

The two sides clashed Thursday after AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson complained that the FCC is taking too long and using inconsistent standards to decide spectrum transactions and other deals.

"This industry continues to see just explosive mobile broadband growth and it's providing one of the few bright spots in the U.S. economy. But I think we all understand this growth cannot continue without more spectrum being cleared and brought to market," Stephenson said on a conference call Thursday morning to discuss the company's earnings report. "Despite all the speeches from the FCC, we are all still waiting. The last significant spectrum auction was nearly five years ago now and this FCC has made it abundantly clear that they will not allow significant [merger and acquisition] to help bridge their delays in freeing up new spectrum."

AT&T reported a $6.7 billion loss in the last quarter of 2011 in large part because of the break-up fee it must pay after its bid to buy T-Mobile failed. The company dropped its bid for T-Mobile last month after both the Justice Department and the FCC objected to the deal.

Stephenson complained on Thursday that the FCC used differing sets of standards related to how much spectrum AT&T can hold in each market for evaluating its bid for T-Mobile and in its recently cleared purchase of a swath of spectrum from Qualcomm.

"We are literally sitting here in a situation where we don't know how much spectrum we are allowed to hold...who we are allowed to do business with, and so forth," he said.

The FCC fired back Thursday afternoon noting that the commission has approved more than 150 commercial mobile transactions in the last year, including AT&T's Qualcomm deal.

"Unfortunately, these facts were completely ignored in the conference call," FCC spokesman Neil Grace said in a statement. On the AT&T-T-Mobile deal, Grace added that, "The DOJ and FCC staffs concluded that this action would violate the antitrust laws and result in higher prices for consumers, and less innovation and investment in the marketplace. Those conclusions surely disappointed AT&T executives, but they followed directly from the facts and the law."

It wasn't always this way between the telecom operator and its regulator. Just over a year ago, AT&T was among the few broadband providers to endorse the FCC's controversial open Internet order. Then again both sides got something out of it. For AT&T, the order's most controversial provisions did not apply to the growing wireless broadband market. At the same time, the FCC gained the support of one of the biggest broadband providers in the country.

The Obama administration is in talks with the European Commission about possible revisions to a 2000 agreement ensuring U.S. companies are in compliance with the European Union's privacy directive given proposed changes to those rules.

Commerce Department Senior Internet Policy Adviser Ari Schwartz told Tech Daily Dose Thursday that U.S. and EU officials are in discussions about whether the safe harbor agreement also will need to be revised.

The commission on Wednesday proposed several changes to the directive that would streamline compliance but also toughen some of the standards. It also makes it clear that the EU rules do apply to U.S. companies that do business in Europe -- even U.S.-based websites used by Europeans.

Schwartz and Federal Trade Commission member Julie Brill declined to comment on the proposed changes to the EU directive.

But both the Commerce Department and the Federal Trade Commission voiced some concerns with an earlier draft of the commission's proposed changes.

AT&T's CEO complained about FCC regulation in discussing the company's $6.7 billion loss in the last quarter of 2011, which stemmed primarily from the break-up fee the company paid as part of its failed bid to buy T-Mobile USA, Information Week reports.

Despite a big jump in new customers from a year ago, the Wall Street Journal says AT&T is still attracting fewer new customers than rival Verizon Wireless.

Facebook has hired Bloomberg's former social media director to work as the social networking service's managing editor, Business Insider reports.

The Sunlight Foundation examines why Congress has such a hard time understanding technology.

Google says it will now allow teenagers to sign up for its social networking service Google +, Fox News reports.

Read all of today's e-Reads on our Tech page.

A bipartisan group of House Energy and Commerce members asked Google on Thursday to explain why it plans to start tracking users and collecting information about them across all the company's products.

"As an Internet giant, Google has a responsibility to protect the privacy of its users," the eight lawmakers wrote Google CEO Larry Page. "Therefore, we are writing to learn why Google feels that these changes are necessary, and what steps are being taken to ensure protection of consumers' privacy rights."

The letter was signed by Energy and Commerce ranking member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., as well as Reps. Joe Barton, R-Texas, Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., Diana DeGette, D-Colo., Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Jackie Speier, D-Calif., who is the only signer who doesn't sit on Energy and Commerce.

Even before announcing its proposed privacy changes on Tuesday, Google was already under scrutiny after reaching a settlement last year with the Federal Trade Commission over allegations that the company deceived its Gmail users in the rollout of its now-defunct social networking service Buzz. Google is also the subject of an antitrust probe by the FTC.

The lawmakers questioned why users are not allowed to opt out of Google's privacy changes. "Consumers should have the ability to opt out of data collection when they are not comfortable with a company's terms of service and that the ability to exercise that choice should be simple and straightforward," they added.

The representatives asked Google to answer by Feb. 16 a long list of questions about the changes, including what information it now collects and will collect after the changes go into effect on March 1, whether it shares such data with anyone else, how the privacy changes affect users of its Android mobile phone operating system, and what protections will be provided to children and teens.

In a new blog post Thursday, Google responded to some of the concerns raised about its privacy changes. It noted that users don't have to be logged into Google to use services such as search or YouTube. And for those who do log in and therefore would be tracked, the company says it offers a variety of privacy controls. "We're making things simpler and we're trying to be upfront about it. Period," Google Policy Manager Betsy Masiello wrote.

Google, meanwhile, now says that the privacy changes will not apply to government workers who use its Google Apps for Government enterprise email system. Google made the comments after Karen Evans, the former director of electronic government in the administration of former President George W. Bush, said the proposed changes would have a "serious impact" on government users.

Apple's record fourth-quarter profits have helped pushed it back into the lofty position as the world's most valuable company, knocking oil giant Exxon from that spot, USA Today reports.

Motorola is suing Apple for infringing its technology patents, according to Reuters.

Netflix stock soared after it reported much better than expected profits, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Read all of today's e-Reads on our Tech page.

Several tech industry organizations cited Tuesday's State of the Union as they reminded President Obama that technology companies can play a unique role in an economic recovery.

"The tech industry has been a consistent investor in this country -- on average each technology industry job supports three jobs in other sectors of the U.S. economy -- and now we're looking for cooperation and certainty from Washington to help us continue to be the world's leader," said Dan Varroney, acting president of TechAmerica. "[Tuesday's] speech held a lot of promise. What we need now is follow through."

During his speech, Obama outlined proposals for returning manufacturing jobs to the United States, and touched on other issues promoted by the tech lobby, including tax reform, education, and immigration.

But tech companies say they want to see more than just promises.

"We have a long way to go to revitalize this critical sector. What matters now is matching words with action," the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said in a statement.

More on reaction to the speech from the tech industry and members of Congress can be found here.

Some U.S. tech industry officials said Wednesday that they worry that the European Commission's proposed changes to its privacy rules could be costly for them to comply with and may hamper innovation.

"We welcome revisions that would make it easier for global companies to demonstrate compliance with the EU privacy regime, and to ease the administrative burdens," Software and Information Industry Association Vice President Mark MacCarthy said in a statement. "However, SIIA is concerned that the breadth of these proposed regulations threaten the Internet economy and impede economic growth and job creation."

The release of the proposed changes to the commission"s 1995 data privacy directive is the first step in a lengthy process.The commission has called for simplifying the current compliance process that requires businesses to deal with data protection authorities in each EU member country. Under the proposed changes, companies would only have to deal with one data protection authority.

But the commission also calls for toughening the current rules by requiring companies to get express consent from European users before collecting or using personal data. It also would require companies to give users a "right to be forgotten," which would allow users to delete personal data when there is no "legitimate" reason to retain it.

The rules would apply to U.S. companies that do business in Europe or offer services or websites targeted at Europeans. This could include a U.S. based website used by Europeans, such as Google or Facebook. Industry representatives worry it will increase the cost of doing business and possibly hamper innovation.

It's unclear what impact the proposed changes will have on an agreement the United States negotiated with the EU in the late 1990s after the directive first went into effect. The privacy directive bars the transfer of personal data about Europeans to non-EU countries that don't have privacy protections deemed to be "adequate" by EU officials. U.S. companies that adhere to the privacy principles in the safe harbor agreement negotiated between the U.S. and EU were deemed to be in compliance with the directive even though the U.S. lacks a broad consumer privacy law.

But Christopher Wolf, director of Hogan Lovells' privacy and information management practice, said while the EU has been silent on the issue, he expects the safe harbor agreement may eventually have to be revised to reflect the changes to the EU's privacy rules.

Some U.S. privacy advocates said they hope the proposed changes will force some rethinking of the U.S. approach to privacy, which relies on a mix of industry self-regulation and narrowly targeted privacy laws aimed at specific sectors such as finance and health. So far, efforts to pass broad consumer privacy legislation in Congress haven't gone very far.

"Once Google and Facebook are following European rules, there will be no way for the companies to justify the obviously inadequate protection in the U.S.," John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog, a vocal Google critic, said in a statement. Google has come under fire after it said Tuesday that it plans to begin tracking users and collecting data about them as they move from one Google service to another.

The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee said Wednesday he is confident that House and Senate negotiators will include his version of spectrum legislation in a payroll tax package given that it would generate more cash to pay down the deficit than the Senate Commerce Committee's version.

Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., outlined an aggressive agenda for his panel for this year, including pushing for legislation to free up more spectrum for wireless broadband and to help build a national broadband public safety network.

Walden and Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., are among the House conferees picked to help negotiate the differences between the House and Senate versions of legislation that would extend a payroll tax holiday and other tax breaks. The House's payroll tax bill, passed last month, included the spectrum legislation authored by Walden that was approved by his subcommittee in November.

The Senate Commerce Committee approved its own version of spectrum legislation last summer. Both the Walden and Commerce bills would authorize auctions to entice broadcasters to voluntarily give up some of their spectrum for a share of the money generated. Among the notable differences between Walden's measure and the Senate Commerce bill is that his would generate about $10 billion more for deficit reduction, Walden said.

Another provision that has emerged as a point of contention in recent weeks is language in the House bill that would bar the FCC from limiting which companies could participate in incentive auctions. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski earlier this month urged lawmakers not to limit the commission's flexibility to structure the auctions as it sees fit.

Following his speech, AT&T voiced concern that the FCC may try to keep it and other large wireless operators from bidding for the spectrum that broadcasters give up at auction. Walden said the language included in his bill would ensure the FCC can't pick winners and losers. He added that the commission would still have authority to address concerns over market concentration even after an auction is conducted.

"The only reason the chairman is upset about the provision is that he wants to exclude one of two market participants," Walden said, referring to the nation's two biggest wireless firms: AT&T and Verizon Wireless. "I don't think it's good public policy."

Walden said he believes it's likely that some version of the spectrum legislation will be included in the payroll tax package the House and Senate negotiators are trying to hammer out. The conference committee met for the first time Tuesday. "I would think given the need to pay for the various components of the [payroll] legislation...it would cause a problem if it dropped out," he said. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that Walden's spectrum legislation would generate $16.7 billion for deficit reduction compared with just $6.5 billion for the Senate bill, authored by Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.

Walden also said the full Energy and Commerce committee plans to mark up FCC reform legislation on Feb. 7. While praising Genachowski for making some progress in overhauling how the FCC conducts its business, Walden said changes promoting transparency need to be codified into law.

Democrats, however, have been critical of a provision that would limit the FCC's ability to demand conditions from merging companies in the name of the public interest. "All we're saying is that you can't use leverage on mergers...to achieve effects in the marketplace that you don't statutorily have the right to do," Walden said.

What were they thinking?

That was the sentiment expressed by the head of a key House subcommittee Wednesday when asked about how the Federal Communications Commission handled LightSquared's quest to build a nationwide wireless network.

"I am trying to figure out how the cart got so far ahead of the horse," Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Communications and Technology Subcommittee, said during a news conference to discuss his 2012 agenda. Walden said he plans to hold a hearing on the controversy this year but didn't give a specific date.

Tests indicate that LightSquared's proposals would interfere with global positioning systems. LightSquared says it has solved the interference problems, but representatives of nine federal agencies concluded on Jan. 13 that no practical measures can allow LightSquared to overcome interference with GPS.

The finding, a significant blow to LightSquared's case, prompted a furious response from the beleaguered wireless startup, which accused the government panel of "a systematic disregard for fairness and transparency."

Walden said he has met with representatives from both GPS companies and LightSquared in hopes of figuring out if there is an "engineering answer here." He said he got two different answers.

The FCC says it will not give LightSquared final approval until tests show that the network can be safely built, but the agency has come under fire for its handling of the process.

Walden questioned how the FCC could allow Light Squared to obtain spectrum that it is now being told will interfere with GPS systems. "How did it get to this point?" asked Walden, a former radio broadcaster who has had to bid for spectrum licenses.

The FCC says it did nothing unusual in working with LightSquared, and has repeatedly said it will not give the company approval until all problems have been resolved.

Bearing the Republican banner in the party's response to Tuesday's State of the Union speech, Gov. Mitch Daniels, R-Indiana, used a tech titan to hit back at the president's jobs proposals.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who died last year, did more to help the economy than government efforts, Daniels argued.

"Contrary to the President's constant disparagement of people in business, it's one of the noblest of human pursuits," Daniels said in his prepared remarks. "The late Steve Jobs - what a fitting name he had - created more of them than all those stimulus dollars the President borrowed and blew."

That may depend on how you count.

In October of 2009, the White House reported that 640,329 jobs had been created. But the method of counting those jobs came under fire and in 2010 the White House stopped providing a cumulative count of of all jobs. Now Recovery.gov, which tracks stimulus projects, reports the numbers by quarter.

Stimulus programs provided at least 400,000 jobs from July to September last year, according to data on Recovery.gov.

Jobs spent about two decades at Apple, which currently employs about 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 more overseas, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The New York Times reports that another 700,000 people work for contractors tasked with building the company's iconic electronic devices.

Mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad, which Apple pioneered, also helped lead to an explosive growth in mobile application development.

People who viewed Tuesday's State of the Union on the White House website were treated to a multimedia presentation.

The site featured a live video feed of President Obama's speech to Congress, complemented by graphs, statistics, and photos displayed in a sidebar.

"As the President outlines his plans for 2012, you'll see key facts and figures," White House senior adviser David Plouffe said in an e-mail announcing the new features. "We'll present charts and infographics so that everyone can get a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges ahead of us."

The graphics corresponded to Obama's statements on such issues as jobs and immigration.

Obama used Tuesday's speech to outline proposals that he says will help the economy, including the tech industry, recover.

Target doesn't want to be a showroom for online retailers, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Who's waiting for an iPhone 5? The Associated Press reports that Apple sold 37 million iPhones in the last quarter of 2011, double the number of the previous quarter.

Engineers at Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace have created a plug-in that they hope proves that Google's new social search function is biased, The Washington Post reports.

More of Today's e-Reads can be found on our Tech page.

The co-chairs of the Congressional High Tech Caucus plan to sit together when President Obama delivers his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Reps. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Congresswoman Doris Matsui, D-Calif., say they want to show that members of Congress can work together to boost the economy through issues such as tax reform, cloud computing, cybersecurity, spectrum, privacy, and intellectual property and copyright protection.

"The American technology industry continues to be the envy of the world and a proven job creator," Matsui said in a statement. "As we continue working to get Americans back to work and keep our country competitive, we are demonstrating that we must come together to accomplish these things,"

The official who led the antitrust case against AT&T's merger with T-Mobile, Sharis Pozen, is stepping down, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A new study says tablet and e-book ownership nearly doubled over the holidays, according to the Associated Press.

President Obama will visit an Intel plant in Arizona a day after the State of the Union address, The Hill reports.

More of Today's e-Reads can be found on our Tech page.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, accused backers of LightSquared's proposed wireless network on Monday of seeking to pressure him into giving up an investigation into the company's plans.

Grassley said comments by Harbinger Capital's Philip Falcone, and another man who claimed to be representing LightSquared, could be interpreted as offering benefits in exchange for the senator's support. Here's the somewhat confusing letter to Falcone, who has helped finance LightSquared,

Grassley has been seeking documents from LightSquared and the Federal Communications Commission about the company's efforts to obtain approval for a nationwide wireless network. Tests show the network could interfere with global positioning systems.

The new accusations may not bode well for two FCC nominees, whose confirmations are being held up by Grassley over the LightSquared spat.

In an e-mail to a Grassley staffer, released by the congressional office, Falcone says he could help make the deal a "win" for Grassley politically. In a separate phone exchange, Todd Ruelle, who apparently works for a separate company, Fine Point Technologies, told a Senate staffer that a call center could be built in Iowa if the deal went through, according to Grassley's letter to Falcone.

"Taken together, these two statements implied an invitation to pull punches in my investigation. I won't be a part of that," Grassley wrote. He asked Falcone to confirm whether Ruelle was working for Harbinger or LightSquared, and if so, what his relationship with the companies is.

But Harbinger Capital spokesman Lew Phelps said the Ruelle "does not, nor has he ever worked for Mr. Falcone, Harbinger or LightSquared as an employee or a consultant," and was not speaking on behalf of the companies.

"If such conversations occurred, Mr. Ruelle was acting entirely on his own and without the knowledge, authority, or endorsement of Mr. Falcone, Harbinger or LightSquared," Phelps said in a statement. LightSquared referred requests for comment to Harbinger and a request sent to Fine Point Technologies was not immediately answered.

It's not the first time LightSquared has faced charges of political meddling. Last year congressional Republicans raised questions of inappropriate contact between the company's supporters and members of the Obama Administration. In the heat of the controversy In September, Falcone took to Fox News to argue that the process "shouldn't be a political issue."

The e-mails published by Grassley are available here, here, and here.

Facebook spent more than $1.3 million on lobbying efforts last year, passing the $1 million mark for the first time, according to disclosure documents.

In 2010, by contrast, Facebook spent less than $400,000.

And Facebook's fourth-quarter spending for last year was $440,000, up from $130,000 during the same period in 2010.

Facebook upped its advocacy efforts as scrutiny of its privacy policies increased. In recent years it has hired Joel Kaplan, a former deputy chief of staff for George W. Bush, and Marne Levine, former chief of staff to the White House's National Economic Council, among others.

The increase in spending, however, wasn't enough to catch up with Google, which spent about $3.7 million in the last months of 2011.