The Hill reports that the Senate Commerce Committee will be holding a hearing on driverless cars on Wednesday to take a look at all of the issues currently surrounding the technology. The hearing will touch upon safety benefits, the risks associated with driverless cars, and what impact, if any, legalizing driverless cars will have on current policies.

Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller told the Hill that the hearing will focus on making sure driverless cares are safe:

“It’s vital that Congress understand the safety benefits, but we must make sure that these systems are reliable and secure, and don’t add to the numerous distractions already in cars. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also must have the capabilities to oversee the safety of new vehicle technology.”

Driverless cars won’t be the only technology brought up either. The Committee will take a look at the recent trend of smartphone integration into vehicles. Some are concerned that having access to Pandora and other smartphone apps in cars will lead to more distracted driving – an already dangerous habit of many American drivers.

There’s no word yet on who’s going to be represented at the hearing, but it’s a good bet that somebody from Google’s driverless car program will be present. The company has been investing quite a bit into the technology over the past few years, and has even managed to legalize the cars in California, Nevada, Florida and Texas. It would appear that Congress wants to ascertain the safety of the vehicles before they become legal in more states.

We can only hope that somebody will bring up Google’s almost spotless track record during the hearing. The cars have driven over a collective 300,000 miles, and have only been involved in two accidents. Furthermore, those two accidents were caused when human control was introduced.

During an ECPA hearing this week, Rep. Louie Gohmert was questioning Google’s Richard Salgado about Gmail and privacy. The congressman somehow got it in his head that Google sells private information contained in your emails to advertisers. From there, the conversation slowly devolved into Gohmert asking inane question after inane question with Salgado doing his best to explain that Google doesn’t actually sell information to advertisers while Gohmert insists that it must.

Anyway, just watch the exchange.

Email privacy is incredibly important, and Gohmert’s intentions are noble. He obviously wants to protect email from the prying eye of government. Unfortunately, he displays a total lack of understanding of how email and online advertising works.

What’s interesting is that Salgado, in his written testimony, argued that ECPA should require law enforcement to obtain warrants before accessing private emails. Gohmert completely disregards this testimony as he starts to wonder if Google will start working with the government to scan for keywords, like “terrorism” or “Benghazi.”

As Salgado says, it’s an apple and oranges situation. The tools that Google provides to advertisers are inherently different to the the tools used by law enforcement. Even if the government did snoop on your email, it wouldn’t be using an advertising algorithm because it wouldn’t return any information. Law enforcement’s goal is to collect data, and Google’s email advertising does no such thing.

[h/t: TechDirt]

While Google’s main motivation was to keep being the search technology for fifth-place AOL Search, there was a lot of talk on both sides about the two companies working together. The big get, mentioned right in the press release: Google Talk and AOL Instant Messenger integration.

What the hell happened? It’s been two years, and the two products have made less effort to work together than the U.S. Congress. Granted, development on Google Talk has gone dark, with a second version of the product either not in development or massively delayed, and AOL’s rising star software division suffered massive multiple layoffs that have decimated their ability to ship good products and hold talented engineers, but interaction between the protocols could have been done quickly if someone had made it a priority.

As we do every once in a while, we’re hearing more leaks about supposed GTalk/AIM integration, this time in the form of leaked screenshots of a future Gmail build. If Gmail Chat gets AIM integration, that would be great news, but if it gets it and Google Talk doesn’t, it might be time to declare development of Talk a dead project. All the new Google Talk features seem to be happening in other projects, while the desktop client lies fallow.

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But then the article begins, “Republican Congress members Tuesday called for a hearing into whether Google’s proposed $3.1 billion buyout of DoubleClick would compromise Web users’ privacy.”

Oh. So it’s not all 535 voting members of the US Congress that think there’s something hinky with the world’s largest data repository search engine purchasing one of the largest online advertising agencies and platforms.

In fact, it’s not even all 250 Republican members of Congress. It’s twelve of them. They’ve written a letter to Rep. Bobby Rush, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, stating:

Google and DoubleClick would have one of the largest search query databases with one of the largest online user behavioral profile databases. The privacy implications of such a merger are enormous and without an in-depth examination, we and the American public will not fully understand what all of those implications may be.

I’m not one to fight Google’s battle for them (since I’m not entirely convinced that those twelve angry [congress]men aren’t right). Google, however, has been eager to fight for themselves, responding that they’ve:

taken a number of industry-leading steps to improve privacy for our users, and the success of the DoubleClick acquisition depends on our retaining our users’ trust. . . . Congress would be best served by taking an industry-wide look at the issue, just as the FTC did at last week’s town hall.

On the one hand, Google’s right: this just isn’t Congress’s job. It’s like the Dept. of Justice telling the FCC what to do about Net Neutrality (oh wait . . . )—except this time, we’re getting our separated powers all in a knot.

With all the “help” they’re getting, will the FTC (and the FCC!) ever get a chance to finally decide for themselves?

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Also among them introducing the bill was Olympia Snowe, who last week called for a Network Neutrality hearing, Daniel Inouye, who received her letter, and Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).

The Community Broadband Act treats Internet access as a public utility, and is thought will help improve broadband competition and bolster municipal Wi-fi networks. It will also help ensure those without broadband get high-speed Internet access.

"The Community Broadband Act will provide local governments, schools, nonprofits and disadvantaged communities with faster, cheaper and more reliable broadband service," said Shawn Chang, deputy policy director of Free Press. "With millions still lacking the economic benefits of high-speed Internet, this legislation could not be more critical."

Here is most of the text from the letter:

Over the past several months there have been incidents that have raised serious concern about the phone and cable companies’ power to discriminate against content. Just recently, Verizon Wireless arbitrarily chose to block a series of text messages on the grounds that the subject matter was too controversial.

While the carrier, to its credit, reversed this decision, this illustrates its power as a content gatekeeper. Then came the news that AT&T reserves the right in its Terms of Service to discontinue service of customers that criticize the company. And just last week, we saw reports of Comcast interfering with the popular file-sharing service BitTorrent.

All of these developments, Mr. Chairman, suggest that the Committee needs to consider the issue of content discrimination and investigate these incidents further if they were based on legitimate business and network management policies or part of practices that would be deemed unfair and anti-competitive.

The phone and cable companies have previously stated that they would never use their market power to operate as content gatekeepers and have called efforts to put rules in place to protect consumers "a solution in search of a problem."

These recent events suggest that response is well short of being sufficient and this Congress should consider adopting targeted regulations to protect consumers and ensure an open and vibrant communications platform.

We request that the full Committee hold a hearing to discuss discrimination against content and applications by phone and cable companies, and whether current regulatory protections are enough.

Last year, the Federal Communications Commission required a commitment from AT&T to Net Neutrality principals as a condition for regulatory approval of its merger with BellSouth. The condition has been proven to have no enforcement capability, as noted immediately by FCC chairman Kevin Martin, who opposed the conditions.

The Department of Justice also recently denied the need for Network Neutrality by reiterating telecom talking points. Skeptics feel the DOJ has a vested interest not only in scratching the backs of telecommunications providers who turn over phone records, but also in their ability to differentiate data packets. Net Neutrality legislation could, conceivably, prevent telecom’s rights to do so.  

Upon review of the testimony by David Drummond of Google, and Brad Smith of Microsoft, Google thinks its proposed purchase of DoubleClick represents a routine business development, one that isn’t worthy of all the kerfuffle raised by privacy advocates and antitrust regulators.

Microsoft sees it as an anti-competitive move that would be akin to arming polar bears with invisibility cloaks and Desert Eagle .50AE handguns. Competitors, and normal people with privacy concerns, would be the equivalent of newborns left out on the frozen tundra.

"If Google is allowed to proceed with this merger, it will also obtain a dominant gateway position over the other main type of online advertising – non-search ads. Today Google and DoubleClick are the two largest competitors in this area. Combined, Google will account for nearly 80 percent of all spending on non-search ads," Smith said in his remarks about the merger during the hearing.

"We are confident – and numerous independent analysts have agreed – that our purchase of DoubleClick does not raise antitrust issues because of one simple fact: Google and DoubleClick are complementary businesses, and do not compete with each other. DoubleClick does not buy ads, sell ads, or buy or sell advertising space," Drummond remarked in his merger testimony.

As an AP report from the hearing noted, the Senators in attendance cannot block Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick. They can make their views known to antitrust regulators, who do have the power to do so.

Subcommittee chair Senator Herb Kohl thinks the deal "warrants close examination" and wondered if "advertisers and Internet publishers (will) have no choice but to deal with Google, giving Google a stranglehold over Internet advertising and the power to raise ad rates."

A study on the Google-DoubleClick deal released only hours ahead of the hearing suggested Google would be able to effectively raise DoubleClick prices, as DoubleClick advertisers view Google as the next best thing to participating in DoubleClick’s programs.

Trouble is Aaron signed an agreement not to talk further about the process on his Web site, or with anyone in the media (including me). So, now we won’t hear much more. I guess if he says he’s a Google employee we’ll know how the story turned out, but I doubt he’ll know such a thing this week.

I found Aaron to be interesting and smart, but I wasn’t able to learn what his idea was because of the agreement. He told me he wanted to stick to his goal: getting Google to use the idea (which, he admitted, was actually a combination of three ideas that he’d written a prototype for, and prepared a presentation about). Not to make his Web site popular (he was quite surprised at how popular it had gotten, in such a short period of time. That didn’t surprise me, though. The word-of-mouth network is quite efficient now and ideas spread fast). Funny enough he said most of his early traffic came from within Google and after that it got on Digg and TechMeme and other popular blogs, which brought waves of traffic.

That’s typical too. If one guy in a big company finds something interesting they email it around and you can get thousands of visits in an hour. I remember one time when I emailed something around one of the bigger lists at Microsoft and the blog owner asked me what the heck was going on, cause he had gotten 2,000 visits in a few minutes. Turns out big company employees are email happy and click on links in email at a ferocious rate.

Anyway, Aaron said his trip had already succeeded and that he was going to stick around a few more days and see Silicon Valley’s sights (I told him to visit the Computer History Museum before he goes home, especially since that’s only a couple of miles from Google’s campus). Oh, and he also told me he’s been working on the idea for several years, and that Google is best positioned to make his idea happen (he’s considered going the venture capital route, but that Google with its massive new data centers is able to take advantage of the idea right now, vs. a few years from now).

Actually, that’s the best reason to go to work for a big company. IF you can get them to implement your idea (not easy at all, as I covered yesterday) your idea will get resources that a smaller company can only dream about (and most VC’s won’t be willing to fund).

More links on this over on TechMeme.

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About the Author

Robert Scoble is the founder of the Scobleizer blog. He works as PodTech.net’s Vice President of Media Development.

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Google and two associations, one representing photographers and another journalists, have reached accords with Google that will allow Google News to use their content, according to a Reuters report. “We reached an agreement with them that is going to help us make extensive use of their content in new ways,” Google spokeswoman Jessica Powell said in the report.

Google had been judged in violation of copyright and database laws in early September.

The company failed to appear at a hearing that led to that decision.

The Court of First Instance ordered Google to stop indexing content from agencies represented by Copiepresse. Google seemed to take particular exception to being required to post the court’s decision on the Google.be home page for a five-day period.

Now, Google has argued that they should be able to fight the injunction against it. The court has agreed, and the two sides will go at it after the holidays.

As with most disagreements in life, this one has money as a component.

Copiepresse objects to the caching of its content, which makes those stories available long after Copiepresse has tucked them behind a subscription wall.

A Copiepresse executive at the hearing noted the organization was interested in talks with Google, and a lawyer for Google likewise said the company was trying to “resume dialogue.”

Since the photographer and journalist groups have settled already, it will not be a surprise to find the two sides making a similar accord.

The bigger issue for Google would be the copyright one.

Google has generally come out ahead when it comes to indexing content, and has delivered on getting web users to relevant sites.

Any decision that impaired Google’s ability to freely index content not otherwise restricted by a robots.txt file would be very detrimental to the company.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

What? I wonder if the next generation of iPod’s will feature a built in hearing aid? The people at Phonak really are projecting increased growth because of MP3 players. The same concerns about hearing loss were around when Sony’s Walkman was introduced decades ago.

There can be little doubt that listening to your music too loudly over time will impact your hearing. The problem is most people will not notice the hearing loss until it has progressed beyond repair.

Pam Mason MEd, Director, Audiology Professional Practices Unit, ASHA the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association said, “After you’ve worn your MP3 player all day long or a considerable amount during the day you may find that your hearing sounds muffled when you take them off in the evening or that you have ringing in the ear, which is called tinnitus. These are two early warning signs that you may have exposed your hearing to excessively loud noise.”

Will politicians push to regulate the volume of MP3 players? Will people pay attention and turn down the volume? What about litigation against the makers of MP3 players?

The phrase “Can you hear me now?” may take on a whole new meaning instead of referring to a wireless phone commercial.

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Mike is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest ebusiness news.