The National Transportation Safety Board Wednesday recommended that the Coast Guard issue a policy on cellphone use by members of the service while on duty. That came in response to two accidents between Coast Guard patrol boats and commercial craft. The NTSB issued a second recommendation to the maritime industry, asking it to also issue a notice on the danger of cellphone use while operating a boat.

Google will work as the sales representative for several channels offered by DirecTV, the companies said Wednesday. The partnership is a step forward for Google’s effort to gain recognition as an ad seller in traditional media in preparation for a possible flattening out of Internet ad sales, media industry analysts said.

The net neutrality proposal by Google and Verizon is a positive sign and a right step forward in coming up with a reasonable agreement, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets CEO Ralph de la Vega said Wednesday. The plan is good for the industry, De la Vega told an investor conference. He underlined that two companies from different industries can come together on a difficult issue. He’s hopeful that the rest of the industry as well as the regulators can use the proposal as a framework to come to an agreement. De la Vega wouldn’t speculate on how the FCC would react but said any debate should be settled by legislative process and not regulators.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A former senior Homeland Security official largely blamed the privacy-rights lobby’s success for what he called lack of U.S. preparation for cyberwar. Improved preparedness “requires that the public grow up and realize we need these capabilities,” said Stewart Baker, DHS’s first assistant secretary for policy, 2005-2009. Privacy advocates never got behind that, he said on panel at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting, which ended this week. Baker, a Steptoe & Johnson partner, criticized “privacy campaigners” as insisting that “we don’t want” the National Security Agency “anywhere near our packets,” even in a response to a cyberattack on the U.S.

FCC staffers reviewing Comcast’s planned purchase of control in NBC Universal may not complete their work this year, as the companies hope, said commission officials and industry executives not part of the ongoing staff work. They said there have been indications in private comments from commission officials familiar with the deal that an order on the multibillion-dollar transaction may not be finished in 2010. Staff work on Comcast-NBC Universal, with Internet video continuing to be a key area of focus, likely will be complete in the first quarter of 2011. though there’s still a possibility work will be done this year, commission and industry officials said. Once bureau work is done, an order will be circulated for a commission vote, which will take additional time.

Google’s and Verizon’s proposal for net neutrality legislation, unveiled Monday (CD Aug 10 p1), is having an unintended side effect, industry and public interest group officials said Tuesday: Galvanizing opponents and broadening interest in net neutrality. News of an agreement last week saw net neutrality emerge as a key issue for interest groups like MoveOn.Org, which played a big role in the election of President Barack Obama two years ago.

Former Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens died in a plane crash on the way to a fishing lodge in Alaska Monday night, state officials announced Tuesday. He was 86. Bill Phillips, previously an outside consultant to NCTA, was among the eight others also on the flight. Officials said there were four survivors, but named only ex-NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe and his son. The plane and fishing lodge were owned by Alaskan telecom carrier GCI. The carrier didn’t immediately say what was the purpose of the outing.

Some analysts and economists see the Google-Verizon proposal as a step in the right direction, though they're skeptical of some of the principles. Tom Navin, former Wireline Bureau chief, said in a conference call hosted by Credit Suisse Tuesday that the proposal shows some frustration with negotiations on broadband reclassification at the FCC. Google and Verizon, like many other companies, are probably getting tired of uncertainty as the FCC examines net neutrality, said Navin, now with Wiley Rein. Google’s willingness to compromise takes political leverage away from the FCC, he said.

The cable industry, having sat out Monday’s deal on net neutrality between Google and Verizon, isn’t likely to take part in any future agreements between supporters and opponents of rules, industry officials said. There’s little to be gained politically from cable operators’ signing on to the Google-Verizon agreement, said pay-TV executives and lawyers. Attacks on that wireline-broadband deal by many nonprofit groups supporting net neutrality -- and the lack of support from FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, at whose behest representatives of NCTA and five other bodies met unsuccessfully to seek consensus -- show that similar deals may not have support among regulators and lawmakers, industry lawyers said.

Internet users are disarmed from protecting their privacy by confusion and lack of knowledge about technologies as old and basic as cookies, by disclosures that few understand and by assumptions that laws ban information practices that actually are lawful, research at Carnegie Mellon University found. Results of the studies from recent months were scheduled to be presented late Tuesday at the university’s Silicon Valley campus and then at policy-research conferences in October. They challenge a major prop of the industry’s promotion of self-regulation at a time that the FTC and members of Congress are closely watching, and acting on, targeted ads online and the information collection, sharing and analysis they're based on, the researchers said.