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A bipartisan group of rank-and-file members of Congress has called on the Federal Trade Commission to launch an investigation into Google Buzz, the search giant's new social networking tool.

In a letter to FTC Chairman John Leibowitz, the lawmakers reiterated the privacy concerns that have been widely expressed about the inadvertent sharing of private information that Buzz seemed to invite, though they praised Google for subsequently making several changes to address some of the privacy issues.

Just the same, the group, led by Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.), asked the FTC to launch a probe of Buzz, asking for answers about how many users have deactivated the service since its February launch, and to what extent Google ties the information collected in the service to its advertising operations.

"Due to the high number of individuals whose online privacy is affected by tools like this -- either directly or indirectly -- we feel that these claims warrant the commission's review of Google's public disclosure of personal information of consumers through Google Buzz," the lawmakers wrote.

The Department of Justice on Monday said that it will not sue to block Cisco's acquisition of videoconferencing provider Tandberg, saying that the merger review had resolved the significant anticompetitive concerns.

Tandberg, a Norwegian firm, had been a competitor to Cisco in the area of telepresence, an emerging field where high-resolution video facilitates virtual meetings.

But the DoJ concluded that the market is still young enough that it is likely to remain briskly competitive even after the $3 billion deal combines the two companies.

Christine Varney, the DoJ's antitrust chief, also noted the close cooperation between her team and authorities at the European Commission, who were conducting their own antitrust review and secured commitments from Cisco that its telepresence equipment would be interoperable with its competitors' offerings as part of an effort to develop open standards in the marketplace and preserve competition.

"This investigation was a model of international cooperation between the United States and the European Commission," Varney said in a statement. "The parties should be commended for making every effort to facilitate the close working relationship between the Department of Justice and the European Commission."

The Senate Commerce Committee this week reported sweeping legislation aimed at enhancing the public-private coordination to defend the nation's communications systems and other critical infrastructure against cyber attacks.

The Cybersecurity Act, co-sponsored by John Rockefeller (D-W.V.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), heads to the full Senate for consideration after four revisions to the original bill introduced last April. In a concession to sharp criticism from privacy groups and others, the senators dropped controversial provisions that would authorize the president to seize control and shut down private networks after declaring a "cybersecurity emergency," and also stripped out language that would have given the Commerce Department a mandate to supersede current privacy laws when dealing with an attack.

Touting the bill's passage from committee, the senators stressed the urgency of the cyber threat in no small terms.

"Our future is literally being stolen from us. Cyber attacks and hackers are at work raiding property and proprietary information from U.S. companies and innovators," committee Chairman Rockefeller said in a statement. "The status quo is not sustainable."

Rockefeller and Snowe have praised the administration for its early steps to improve federal cybersecurity policy, which began with a comprehensive review of the current response and defense mechanisms and eventually led to the appointment of Howard Schmidt to lead the White House efforts on the issue and coordinate with Congress, the agencies and the private sector.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts headed back to Capitol Hill on Thursday to defend his company's proposed merger with NBC Universal, offering what by now are [familiar assurances that the combined company won't use its market power to bully smaller cable competitors](http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/news/article.php/3863031), raise prices for consumers or restrict access to Internet video.

And on hand to counterpunch against the merger were some of the usual suspects, including Colleen Abdoullah, president and CEO of cable provider WOW, and Mark Cooper, the director of research at the Consumer Federation of America.

Members of the Senate Commerce Committee also heard supremely unenlightening testimony from FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Christine Varney, the head of the Justice Department's antitrust division. Not that they were uncooperative, but as their respective agencies are in the midst of an ongoing review of the mega-merger, Genachowski and Varney had little to share regarding the transaction at hand, offering only bland promises that the reviews would be timely and thorough, and that staffers from both agencies are working together in a spirit of brisk cooperation.

"We've just started to really collaborate together, largely as a result of this transaction," Genachowski said.

Federal government Web sites will soon begin allowing users to sign in with their account credentials furnished by Google, PayPal and Equifax.

The [Open Identity Exchange](http://www.openidentityexchange.org/) (OIX) debuted today as the certification body to authorize private firms offering Web credentials that meet the security and privacy standards to qualify for use on government sites.

The National Institutes of Health is the first agency accepting outside login credentials on its site.

Verizon is expected to receive its certification process shortly, the group said.

OIX obtained funding through initial grants from the OpenID Foundation and the Information Card Foundation, two groups working to shore up online identity management by streamlining the logins and passwords people use on various Web sites.

"Our hope is that the work of the OIX and other groups will continue to grow and help facilitate more open government participation, as well as improve security on the Internet by reducing password use across Web sites," Eric Sachs, a senior product manager at Google's security division, wrote in a blog post.

And oft-heard refrain from opponents of government meddling in highly technical fields such as IT goes that bureaucrats lack the engineering chops to make informed decisions about the industries they regulate, so they're best advised to take a hands-off approach.

Perhaps in no agency has this friction been more evident than the Federal Communications Commission, the so-called expert agency on matters of Internet policy.

The commission, for instance, was directed by Congress to offer its expert counsel to the two agencies doling out stimulus money for broadband projects. And yet, when it comes to something like the turgid debate over net neutrality, critics blast the FCC for trying to make bright-line rules about immensely complex networking technologies.

But a pair of senators is looking to address that shortcoming. Sens. Olympia Snows (R-Maine) and Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) today introduced legislation that would commission the National Academy of Science to undertake a thoroughgoing study of the FCC's technical capacity, analyzing its staffing levels, recruiting and hiring efforts.

"It is critical that we include engineers in our nation's technical policy and decision making, at the FCC and across the government," Kaufman said in a statement.