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The Federal Trade Commission has named an Internet privacy expert to advise on mobile privacy and competition issues as the agency takes on high-profile investigations of potential harm to consumers by the Web’s biggest firms.

Paul Ohm, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Law School, will begin Aug. 27 as senior policy adviser for consumer protection and competition issues at the FTC’s Office of Policy Planning.

“Paul’s keen insights on how the law applies to technology and privacy issues will be invaluable to the FTC’s work in these areas,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a statement.

In the past two years, the FTC has settled privacy cases with Facebook and Twitter under its mandate to protect consumers. It closed without fines or punishment a separate review of Google’s privacy practices related to the company’s scooping of residential user data from WiFi networks.

The FTC is investigating Google on allegations of breaking antitrust laws. The European Commission announced Monday that Google appeared to violate antitrust rules in four business practices.

Ohm follows a string of scholars, such as Columbia University’s Tim Wu, to offer advice to the FTC — an agency that has become the nation’s top cop for the Internet industry.

“The FTC is the focal point for so many of the important information privacy debates taking place today,” Ohm said in a news release.

Ohm specializes in information privacy, computer crime law nad intellectual property law.

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Google antitrust: European officials said Monday that they have found four areas of concern over Google’s search practices, The Washington Post reported.

In a letter to Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, antitrust officials said that it appears that the firm displays links for its own services in a way that disadvantages the competition.

The letter also said the firm allegedly copied content such as reviews from other services without permission and made it hard to use its ad services on other platforms. E.U. antitrust official Joaquin Almunia has asked Schmidt for a response within “weeks.”

Cable companies team up on WiFi: Five of the country’s largest cable providers announced Monday that they will share access to over 50,000 hot spots across the country. The new network, called CableWiFi, is a joint project of Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner.

In a news release, the companies said the new network will let customers of any of the participating cable companies connect to the new network no matter where they are.

The companies currently have hot spots in and around New York City, Los Angeles, Tampa, Orlando and Philadelphia. The service will be free to broadband subscribers.

Yahoo to sell part of Alibaba: Yahoo has sold back its stake in the Chinese Web company Alibaba. The company announced Sunday that it had sealed the deal, selling much of its stake in Alibaba — a 20 percent share worth about $7.1 billion, according to a company news release.

The move comes shortly after the company lost its chief executive, Scott Thompson, who resigned after it was revealed that he had claimed a false computer science degree for years

Facebook falls in morning trading: Facebook fell sharply in morning trading to a price of $33.72, far below its initial public offering price of $38 per share.

The company’s highly anticipated offering failed to deliver the first-day pop that many analysts had expected, closing just 32 cents above its opening price. The stock’s opening was delayed because of technical glitches on the Nasdaq.

Nasdaq chief executive Bob Greifeld said that the stock exchange was “humbly embarrassed” by the glitches and that Nasdaq’s board met Saturday to discuss plans to change its IPO auction process. He called the first day of trading “successful,” the Associated Press reported.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Friday that it would review the delays with Nasdaq to find the cause, The Washington Post reported.

Chrome overtakes IE: Google’s Chrome browser has taken the crown from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as the most popular browser globally, according to the latest statistics from the analytics firm StatCounter.

Chrome had been steadily catching up to Microsoft’s browser, which has lost nearly 10 percent of its market share in the past year. Chrome was in third place behind IE and Mozilla’s Firefox as recently as last year but has grown quickly. In the United States, however, IE still has first place, with 54 percent of the market.

Are the lights out for good at LightSquared?

Here’s our article from the weekend about the year-long saga for investor Philip Falcone and LightSquared.

The company asked the FCC last week to help it swap its L-band spectrum for other airwaves that don’t have GPS interference issues.

And in the Hill, it looks like FCC has expressed a desire to do all the agency can to help resolve the interference issues.

In a letter last month to Rep. John Duncan (R-Tenn.), FCC international bureau chief Mindel De La Torre said the agency is “considering all options for addressing this ... issue.”

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Falcone’s folly

LightSquared files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

FCC delays review of Verizon’s bid for cable spectrum

(Tony Avelar - Bloomberg) European antitrust officials said Monday they have found four areas of concern in an investigation over the company’s search practices, and said the company could volunteer remedies in order to avoid fines.

The European investigation coincides with a separate investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the first major antitrust investigation of the Internet sector. Many antitrust experts say the E.U. investigation could set the tone for the U.S. probe.

The E.U. office responsible for competition policy said it sent a letter to Google Chairman Eric Schmidt saying it found the firm appeared to display links for its own services in a way that favored their own travel and restaurant services, for example, over competitors’ sites.

Comcast Chief Executive Officer Brian Roberts (Rick Wilking - Reuters) Comcast said Thursday it will test new Internet data caps, expanding its lowest tier to 300 gigabytes a month from 250 gigabytes of data. It will charge an additional $10 for every additional 50 gigabytes of data on top of the basic tier when purchased up-front.

Comcast said the changes are meant to respond to the ever-increasing hunger for Internet services — particularly watching videos over the Web. But executive vice president David Cohen said in a call with reporters that “the vast majority” of current Internet users don’t reach the current ceiling of 250 gigabytes.

“For any business with a scarce resource ... appropriate and fair pricing models should include differential pricing and differential usage on network,” Cohen said. “The headline should be that there is no longer a cap anymore.”