The Justice Department approved deals between Verizon Wireless and several cable companies Thursday under conditions to ensure that the proposals to swap spectrum and to cross-promote services would not harm competition in the telecommunications industry.

The agency worked with the Federal Communications Commission and the New York State Attorney General’s Office on conditions for the deals’ approval.

The deals, as The Washington Post reported in July, were flagged by Justice over concerns that they would stifle competition for landline Internet service. Verizon’s FiOS service competes directly with cable companies involved in the agreements, including Comcast and Time Warner, and Verizon worried that the cross-promotion would eventually eliminate FiOS from the picture.

Among the requirements to let the deals move forward, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Cox Communications must dial down the scope and length of their marketing agreements. The rules prohibit cross-marketing in communities also served by FiOS exists — mainly in the mid-Atlantic — and impose a four-year limit on the deals is areas where FiOS is absent.

The Justice Department also approved Verizon’s proposed spectrum sale to T-Mobile, and Verizon must announce a public process to sell other previously unused spectrum.

“By limiting the scope and duration of the commercial agreements among Verizon and the cable companies while at the same time allowing Verizon and T-Mobile to proceed with their spectrum acquisitions, the department has provided the right remedy for competition and consumers,” said Joseph Wayland, acting assistant attorney general for Justice’s antitrust division.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said the new requirements would “promote the public interest and benefit consumers in several ways,” including boosting the United States as a leader in bringing 4G LTE “to more people in more places”

Genachowski said that he believes the FCC should approve the deals and that he will circulate a draft to the full commission.

Germany takes second look at Facebook: German data protection authorities are reopening a probe into Facebook’s facial recognition technology that had been suspended in June, The New York Times reported.

According to the report, data protection commissioner Johannes Caspar wants Facebook to clear its database of information and get explicit consent from its users before collecting the data from its photo-tagging feature.

Facebook said that it is complying with all data laws and providing adequate notification to its users.

In a statement to The Washington Post on Wednesday, Facebook said: “We believe that the photo tag suggest feature on Facebook is fully compliant with EU data protection laws. During our continuous dialogue with our supervisory authority in Europe, the Office of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, we agreed to develop a best practice solution to notify people on Facebook about photo tag suggest.”

Mobile payments: Major retailers, including Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target, have created a new mobile payment company called Merchant Customer Exchange, which will provide coupons, rebates and loyalty programs on smartphones, the Associated Press reported. The app will also let users buy things directly from their phones.

As the Wall Street Journal reported, the move takes aim at Google’s plans for mobile payments and — to a lesser extent — Apple, as more tech companies focus on how to make smartphones act as digital wallets.

Warrantless wireless tracking: The U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals said Wednesday that no warrant is required for authorities to use real-time tracking on mobile phones, Wired reported.

“If a tool used to transport contraband gives off a signal that can be tracked for location, certainly the police can track the signal,” wrote Judge John M. Rogers in the majority opinion. “The recent nature of cell phone location technology does not change this.”

AT&T focuses on texting and driving: AT&T has started a campaign to eliminate texting and driving, calling on drivers to sign a pledge Sept. 19 to stop the practice altogether.

AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson said in a statement that the company is also “challenging all device makers and app developers to offer devices that come pre-loaded with a no-text-and-drive technology solution.”

In a statement, Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski commended the telecommunications firm for its efforts, saying the practice of texting while driving is as troubling as drinking and driving.

“All of us must be part of the solution, recognizing that while mobile technologies offer enormous benefit, they create new challenges we must tackle together.”

Verizon updates on 911 outage: Verizon officials said that they did not know emergency service was out during the derecho storm that hit the Washington area last month, The Washington Post reported, until the company was contacted by the county.

A report to be released Wednesday shows that Verizon saw “significant problems”with its systems — problems that the company had previously denied.

In the report, the company said that it made mistakes in the way it handled the outage, and Verizon official Maureen Davis said that Verizon’s response was “insufficient for what we were dealing with.”

Spectrum deal approval expected: Federal regulators are reportedly closing in on approving a deal between Verizon Wireless and several cable companies for spectrum and cross-licensing, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Unnamed sources told the newspaper that the companies have agreed to place limits on the cross-promotional aspects of the deal to gain a nod from regulators.

Cybersecurity: Republican lawmakers are striking back against Democrats after Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and others blamed Republicans for stalling cybersecurity legislation.

Nine GOP senators, including John McCain (Ariz.) and Charles Grassley (Iowa), said they “find it bizarre that some Democrats continue to charge Republicans with somehow shirking our responsibilities on national security.”

Democratic lawmakers have called on President Obama to use executive power to enact cybersecurity regulation.

Google and Frommer’s: Google’s aggressive push into the travel business continued Monday as the company snapped up the Frommer’s brand of guidebooks.

Google’s expansion into travel has run afoul of regulators in the past. In 2011, Google acquired the travel software firm ITA, a flight-booking service used by airlines and travel sites such as Orbitz. Some cautioned that the acquisition could allow Google to unfairly leverage its search market share to promote its own content; the Justice Department approved the deal in April 2011.

Critics of the ITA deal said Monday that the Frommer’s purchase raises similar issues, but others say that Google faces enough competition in the space to avoid scrutiny.

Smartphone campaigning is convenient, privacy advocates say, but it raises some concerns, too. (Akos Stiller - Bloomberg) Smartphones may be the coolest new tool for Election 2012, but users should think twice before taking advantage of the technology, privacy advocates say.

A report from the Electronic Privacy Information Center released Monday said that campaigns and voters should be aware of the security and privacy issues that can accompany the next generation of political campaigning.

One thing voters should be careful of when interacting with political campaigns, the group said, is keeping a clear line of separation between their work and personal devices.

“It can make things more complicated,” said EPIC’s associate director, Lillie Coney, of using one’s work phone to participate in a campaign. The report cites an example of an employee who was fired for having a political bumper sticker on her car, and Coney said that some employers may be even less forgiving if company property is used to participate in campaigns. “There could be a chilling effect in saying ‘I know all the Democrats or Republicans working in my store.’ We have to think about the downstream consequences of that,” she said.

And while voters may feel comfortable sharing certain information with the campaign of their choice, they may not feel as comfortable seeing the information posted somewhere else, or in an easier-to-access format.

“The challenge for elections in a social-driven campaign environment is figuring out the right amount of information” to collect and share with others, Coney said. In many cases, it’s difficult to divine how campaign laws made to regulate political mail, radio and television apply to texts, apps or Podcasts.

The report also highlights smartphone security concerns such as malicious software or botnets that could target the mobile versions of legitimate campaign Web sites or apps. Criminals, the report said, could also create fake Web sites that look like legitimate campaign sites in order to trick those using their smartphones to submit personal information. Or they could use botnets to take over smartphone functions to send funds through auto-dialing or to overload campaign Web sites at crucial moments.

Coney said that the average consumer doesn’t see the smartphone as as being that vulnerable to attack yet, but elections provide the opportunity for criminals to easily collect personal information.

“That’s the sort of the unfortunate thing about technology,” she said. “It doesn’t stay still.”

Using smartphones as a part of campaign efforts has a lot of benefits as well, the report noted, such as increased voter engagement due to how convenient it is to give money or time to a campaign on the devices.

To keep potential problems in check, Coney said, campaigns should vet their apps with third-party software assessors and be clear about what information they collect and how it’s used. Voters should check the apps they download are the official campaign apps, and should stick to the primary app markets when looking for apps.

“Democracy is not a spectator sport, we need people to be engaged,” Coney said. “There are a lot of benefits to campaigns, and to voters. Our approach is not to say you can or can’t do that, but to point out the risks.”

Lawmakers urge action on cybersecurity: Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) has urged President Obama to use his executive power to enforce new cybersecurity rules after Senate Republicans stopped comprehensive legislation from passing earlier this month.

Rockefeller joins one of the bill’s co-sponsors, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) in calling for the Obama administration to do all it can on cybersecurity by executive order.

But, as Politico reported, Lieberman’s fellow sponsor, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is not advocating for executive action.

In an interview with Politico, Collins said that an “executive order could send the unintended signal that congressional action is not urgently needed.”

Google buys Frommers: Google has agreed to buy the travel guide publishing program Frommers for an undisclosed amount, expanding the search giant’s reach in its travel and review business. The news was first reported in the Wall Street Journal.

When asked for comment, a Google spokesperson said that the new acquisition will be folded into the company’s Zagat group.

“The Frommer's team and the quality and scope of their content will be a great addition to the Zagat team. We can’t wait to start working with them on our goal to provide a review for every relevant place in the world,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement.

In the Journal report, experts said it was unlikely that Google’s acquisition would raise any red flags in the antitrust world.

"The travel book business is small potatoes even for the Justice Department," Bill Newlin, publisher of Avalon Travel, told the newspaper.

Motorola faces job cuts: Google is planning to cut 4,000 jobs from Motorola Mobility, around 20 percent of the division’s 20,000 employees.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission dated Aug. 3, the company said it plans to trim around one-third of all its facilities — by cutting or consolidating — to get Motorola back into the black. Google said it expects to see a charge of no more than $275 million related to the cuts.

Two-thirds of the reduction will happen outside of the United States, the filing said. According to a report from the New York Times,the company is focusing on cutting operations in Asia and India, will focus on development in Beijing and will also make a development push in Chicago and Sunnyvale, Calif.

Apple-Samsung trial ticks on: Apple and Samsung are back in court Monday, continuing a legal battle over intellectual property. In a weekend order, Judge Lucy Koh ordered both parties to file instructions that the jury will receive before it begins its deliberations.

Koh said she is “disappointed” that Apple and Samsung haven’t come to more agreement on the matter, according to a report from All Things Digital.

The report said Koh would like the testimony to wrap up by Friday and have a discussion on jury instructions by Monday, hearing closing arguments by Tuesday.

ICANN extends comment period: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has extended the comment period on its generic top level domain program for an additional 45 days. The comment period will now end on Sept. 26.

Lawmakers including Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) had urged ICANN to give those interested in commenting more time to do so, saying in an Aug. 7 letter that they would like more information on how ICANN will assuage concerns about the new system. Critics say the program could cause user confusion and hurt copyright holders; ICANN has said it believes the new system will create new Internet real estate that will prompt brand innovation.

In a statement Monday, Leahy applauded ICANN’s decision and urged the group to “listen to the concerns and comments that are raised.”