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Today in Tech: News around the Web

A round-up of the companies, deals, and trends that made headlines.

Every day, the Fortune staff spends hours poring over tech stories, posts, and reviews from all over the Web to keep tabs on the companies that matter. We've assembled the day's most newsworthy bits below.

"Americans are somewhat self-absorbed." -- Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on whether  U.S. citizens would notice the company's cheaper Canadian pricing. (Gizmodo)

Apple mends a few fences

With partners, developers, competitors and maybe some regulatory agencies

One of Apple's (AAPL) weaknesses as a company -- as even Steve Jobs will admit -- is that it isn't a particularly good neighbor. Like its co-founder and CEO, it can be secretive, prickly and quick to take offense. Witness, for example, the 121 pending lawsuits that list Apple as a plaintiff or defendant.

So it's unusual and sort of refreshing to see MORE

Net neutrality for wireless? Don't count on it.

Unrestricted access rules for wireless networks would hurt users more than help them. They just don't realize it.

Earlier this week, Google and Verizon brokered a compromise on the definition -- or at least, their definition -- of net neutrality, a set of rules that ideally, would ensure that no company could place data-access restrictions on Web content, sites, platforms, and associated equipment. The deal itself sparked controversy over whose interests MORE

Apple asks FCC to keep iPhone secrets

Requests "confidentiality treatment" for iPhone 4 specs even as it spills the beans on iTunes

Patently Apple has turned up a curious letter. It was sent on June 4, three days before Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone 4, to the Federal Communications Commission -- the government agency that must certify any wireless device before it can be marketed in the U.S.

Signed by Apple's (AAPL) wireless compliance manager, it requests confidentiality for MORE

Is Sony competing with Logitech on GoogleTV Set top boxes?

At Google I/O, Logitech was said to be building set-top boxes, while Sony was said to have been building TVs and Blu-Ray players with GoogleTV.  A new FCC doc seems to show a Sony stand-alone device.

Engadget uncovered a FCC filing this morning that shows a Sony box sitting on a workstation (below) with a separate label  'Internet TV Box' pictured at right.

That sounds very GoogleTV-ish.  Are we looking at Sony's Google TV?

Another interesting MORE

Google increases lobbying spending by 57 percent

Google is ramping up its efforts in Washington to influence lawmakers according to a Consumer Watchdog  press release

Google (GOOG) started its 'goodwill mission to Washington' with the following statement in 2003:

"We established a Washington presence because we felt like it was important to give our users a voice in Washington.  Technology can be complicated. We absolutely believe taking the time to help people understand our business is a worthy MORE

The business case for a national broadband policy

That thump you heard in the middle of the night, was the 376-page National Broadband Plan finally being dropped (you can get your very own copy or just scan through the executive summary here).

Not pulling any political punches, broadband is compared to electricity in the conclusion to the report crafted by Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski and his team. It reads:

In 1938, President Roosevelt traveled to Gordon Military College in MORE

Has Google found its true calling?

Search giant Google keeps offering telecommunications services. But does that make it a phone company?

By Beth Kowitt, Writer-reporter

Google (GOOG) is an online advertising company, but it has been inching toward disrupting the telecommunications industry for some time.

In 2006 it launched free citywide Wi-Fi in its headquarters town of Mountain View, Calif., as a not-so-subtle jab at traditional broadband providers such as AT&T (T) and the cable operators.

In 2008 it expressed MORE

US says smartphones are data-hogs

AT&T to Google: Your trumpet stinks

I'm glad the net neutrality dispute that broke out this week between AT&T (T) and Google (GOOG) has nothing to do with Apple (AAPL).

The two companies' arguments are so cynically self-serving and the common carrier issues they have locked horns over so thorny and impenetrable that I don't know where to start. (If you want to pursue it, the New York Times' Saul Hansell does a good job laying the MORE