Fortune

[Commentary] If you want a glimpse into what the speed of your Internet connection might look like under the newly proposed Open Internet rules, take yourself back to the last uncomfortable hour of a long plane flight.

You know the feeling. You're back in economy class wondering if seats have actually gotten smaller these past few years (they probably have), and amazed when you glance up front and see how appealing business class has become.

That's what the Internet could look like soon. With all the talk about fast lanes and paid prioritization recently, the Federal Communication Commission's proposed rules could lead us down a path where regular and premium service levels make Internet service look a lot more like air travel.

Tiered service has been common in air travel for years, with airlines offering special amenities and improved service for those who can afford to pay more, while everyone else gets crammed into regular seats. Although almost everyone would prefer to travel more comfortably and wait in faster security and boarding lines, it's often challenging for airlines to convince people to pay the premium for first class: It can cost up to ten times more to fly business instead of economy on a trans-Atlantic flight, and both seats get you to the same destination.

So while airlines try to make first class more appealing with new amenities and personalized attention, they simultaneously have an incentive against improving the quality of "regular" service as a way to protect their higher-end business. And as airlines have struggled financially in recent years, it appears they may even be actively degrading economy class options.

What's more, this tactic has the added benefit of increasing the appeal of premium options while still maintaining the premium price. This nuance is critical because it illustrates the incentives for airlines not only to make more seats available by reducing their size, but to increase the disparity between economy and premium seats to make the premium seats even more attractive to flyers.

[Morris is the Senior Policy Counsel and Kehl is a Policy Analyst at New America's Open Technology Institute]

[Commentary] Pricing was the basis of the Justice Department's actions in 2012 against the major book publishers and Apple, who hated the fact that Amazon sold new e-book titles for less than $10, believing that Amazon was getting customers used to a price that could not sustain publishers' business models.

The publishers colluded with Apple to force a model on e-book sellers where the publisher set prices for books and retailers simply took a commission. The latest tussle with Hachette is likely an extension of this battle, in which Amazon is fighting to regain its ability to dictate prices. If this is, in fact, the case, then it's highly unlikely that Amazon is up to anything illegal.

Antitrust courts since the 1970s have consistently held that it's not illegal for a company to hold huge market share like Amazon does or even to use that market share as a tool in negotiations with suppliers, as long as they aren't using that power to raise prices for the end consumer. Absent this doctrine, it's easy to see how uncompetitive companies could turn to the government for shelter against competition from highly successful firms like Amazon.

Instead of innovating, these companies could rely on the Justice Department to prevent their competitors from becoming too powerful.

MIT's big-data education programs have involved numerous partners in the technology industry, including IBM, which began its involvement in big data education about four years ago.

IBM revealed to Fortune that it plans to expand its academic partnership program by launching new academic programs and new curricula with more than twenty business schools and universities, to begin in the fall. To date, IBM has invested more than $24 billion in R&D and acquisitions to build the company's capabilities around big data and analytics, and it employs about 15,000 consultants and 400 mathematicians to focus exclusively on the area.

Business analytics is now a nearly $16 billion business for the company, IBM says -- which might be why it is interested in cultivating partnerships with more than 1,000 institutions of higher education to drive curricula focused on data-intensive careers.

The W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University launched a Master of Science in Business Analytics degree in 2013 and is now adding a Bachelor of Science in Data Analytics program as well. ASU started its master's program small, with an initial cohort of five students last fall. It has matriculated 100 and is shooting for two groups of 50 by 2015. Meanwhile, the number of applications to the master's program has jumped from 159 in 2013 to 298 applications as of early May.

How do you stop the growing epidemic of stolen smartphones? Lawmakers in California seem to think it's by mandating providers to sell devices with built-in "kill switch" capabilities that would make stolen phones inoperable.

A key question was left unanswered: Is this the solution to smartphone theft? You'd be hard-pressed to find a consensus among industry experts on the matter.

Congressional lawmakers promised to hold hearings for AT&T's proposed $48.6 billion acquisition of DirecTV, mere months after Comcast's $45 billion proposal to acquire Time Warner Cable.

Analysts monitoring the proceedings say the quick succession of mega-deals in the telecommunications industry could pave the way for other deals between telecom companies and cable and satellite providers, forcing regulators to quickly set a course that will sustain them through a period of predicted consolidation.

"We have seen waves of mergers transform industries, time and time again," said Jeff Kagan, a longtime independent analyst covering the wireless and telecom industries. "They seem to come in waves. There are quite a number of mergers, then nothing for several years. Then it starts again. Comcast with Time Warner Cable and AT&T with DirecTV look like they are trying to start this next wave of mergers."

The two recent mega-deals have certainly caught the eye of the nation's lawmakers.

Invasive, pervasive, sometimes abrasive -- welcome to a world where businesses believe there to be value in "big data."

Though the field is nascent -- many businesses don't yet understand what data they have available to them, and even if they do, they may lack the resources to run sophisticated analytics on them -- it gained high-profile attention when the Obama Administration released its Big Data and Privacy Working Group Review.

"The big data revolution presents incredible opportunities in virtually every sector of the economy and every corner of society," wrote John Podesta, counselor to the president, in his introduction to the report. "But big data raises serious questions, too, about how we protect our privacy and other values in a world where data collection is increasingly ubiquitous and where analysis is conducted at speeds approaching real time."

Is the administration in line with the business community? Fortune asked a few experts to compare notes with the White House.

• Be discriminating. Many companies will need to get a better understanding of their data and how it's collected, added Mark Schreiber, a litigation partner with Edwards Wildman Palmer as well as chair of the firm's Privacy and Data Protection Steering Committee and chair for Privacy Matters at the World Law Group.
• Be transparent. Be open and honest with consumers about the data you collect and what you do with it, including how it's being kept secure, the White House cautions.
• Abide by the law(s). There are already numerous legal precedents regarding the use of personal data, Simkoff noted, so "don't be exploring conclusions or trying to do big data analysis queries in areas where there is legal precedent saying you shouldn't."
• Put privacy front and center. Privacy choices, preferences and features should be recognized and embedded early in product development through what Schreiber calls "privacy by design," a notion that "will become increasingly important and standardized," he said.
• Watch for opportunities. "Privacy along with big data will become a business in itself, with an increasing number of privacy and data protection jobs in corporations, government, healthcare, and education," Schreiber said. "Privacy training in companies -- which is rarely done other than where required, such as in industries like healthcare or financial services -- will become routine and commonplace."

[Commentary] Outside of completely unplugging from the grid, there really is no way to avoid being a beacon of personal data for services that feed off of the minute details of your life.

As an unintended side effect, unplugging may even make ourselves more conspicuous. After all, many of the top names on the National Security Agency's suspect list are culled from the ranks of people who are habitually overcautious about leaving any trace. The year is 2014, and dissolving your digital footprint is no longer a practical option.

An informed public needs to ensure that personal data is handled responsibly by demanding that companies have the following protocols in place: 1) clear information on the way personal data is used (i.e. not buried in the Terms of Agreement), 2) a cohesive plan if a privacy infraction occurs, and 3) engineers that are up to speed on the latest security standards.

If a company fails to acquiesce to these demands, then users must take a step back and balance their privacy concerns with the novelty and utility the service provides. By fighting for transparency and remaining vigilant, we can reap the benefits of the personal data economy -- without ever having to take a step off the grid.

[Tuttle is CEO of Expect Labs]

[Commentary] The Federal Commication Commisison’s scheduled vote on network neutrality rules will be a test of just how far the tech industry has come in the intervening years.

The FCC voted to move ahead with Chairman Tom Wheeler's plan for crafting new "net neutrality" rules. Chairman Wheeler's plan, governing how Internet providers can charge content creators for speedy delivery of their data, has been the subject of intense debate between the telecom and tech industries and, increasingly, consumer advocates and grassroots activists.

For now, one of the biggest wild cards remains just how far tech heavies are willing to go in their battle with the telecom giants. As far as Beltway influence goes, Google, for example, was a virtual nonentity back in 2006. It spent less on lobbying that year than Boston University. Its fledgling political action committee doled out a measly $37,000.

Google is, by any measure, a behemoth in Washington these days. Its political action committee (PAC) doled out more than $1 million during the 2012 election year (less than half of what AT&T gave, but still) -- and actually narrowly edged the phone giant in lobbying expenses in 2013. That growth has tracked with Google's rise globally as a corporate colossus, with all the attendant complications.

[Commentary] The Federal Commication Commisison’s scheduled vote on network neutrality rules will be a test of just how far the tech industry has come in the intervening years.

The FCC voted to move ahead with Chairman Tom Wheeler's plan for crafting new "net neutrality" rules. Chairman Wheeler's plan, governing how Internet providers can charge content creators for speedy delivery of their data, has been the subject of intense debate between the telecom and tech industries and, increasingly, consumer advocates and grassroots activists.

For now, one of the biggest wild cards remains just how far tech heavies are willing to go in their battle with the telecom giants. As far as Beltway influence goes, Google, for example, was a virtual nonentity back in 2006. It spent less on lobbying that year than Boston University. Its fledgling political action committee doled out a measly $37,000.

Google is, by any measure, a behemoth in Washington these days. Its political action committee (PAC) doled out more than $1 million during the 2012 election year (less than half of what AT&T gave, but still) -- and actually narrowly edged the phone giant in lobbying expenses in 2013. That growth has tracked with Google's rise globally as a corporate colossus, with all the attendant complications.

Q&A with Amazon Studios director Roy Price about how to make good TV and why it makes sense for Amazon.

The COO spoke about Amazon’s business model for original programming.

“Our business model is fairly straightforward because we have a subscription service so the goal of our program is simply to attract people to Amazon Prime,” he said. He said Amazon has put out 24 pilots so far, which is more than a typical broadcast network will do per year for prime time. “We're busy because we don't have a slate, a lineup. Maybe in a few years we can pull it back a little bit,” he said.

Price said this makes sense for Amazon. “What you really want in the on-demand environment, which is different than the broadcast environment, is that you need to find people who really like the show enough to seek it out. You need to really want to watch the show in modern TV, Price explained. "It's not about changing the channel anywhere, or just seeing what's on. It's not good enough to be good-ish,” he said.