Washington Post

Data show that there's a big gap between the executives at the top of the tech pyramid and those who actually make the machines go.

This is true for Twitter, but also at Yahoo, where women account for 37 percent of the workforce but only 23 percent of leadership positions. Whites make up only 50 percent of Yahoo's US employees, but as much as 78 percent of its US-based leadership. Asians make up more than a third of Facebook's overall workforce. Yet only 19 percent have made it into senior-level positions.

There appears to be a ceiling at many of these companies that transcends demography.

[Commentary] Comcast has been engaged in a public relations battle lately to convince policymakers and the public that it is all in favor of network neutrality, or the idea that Internet traffic should be treated equally by Internet service providers no matter where it came from or what's contained in it.

In an ongoing ad campaign, Comcast touts that it's the only Internet service provider (or ISP) legally bound by "full" net neutrality and that the company wants to expand that commitment to even more people.

None of what Comcast has claimed is factually untrue. But the company omits some facts in its advertising that gives the impression that it is unconditionally committed to "full" net neutrality, whatever that might mean, when the bigger picture is somewhat more complicated.

What Comcast doesn't say is that its commitment to "full" net neutrality expires in 2018. After that, it will no longer be legally bound to follow the 2010 rules, and it'll be free to abandon that commitment literally overnight. Comcast does not note this detail in its ads; nor does it explain how its policies may change in 2018.

It turns out that, as a percentage of the money they pull in, Internet service providers (ISPs) have generally spent less on infrastructure over time -- from a high of 37 percent of revenue in some cases to a low of around 12 percent more recently. This affects how reliable your connections are, what kind of speeds you get and the amount you pay for service each month.

Some companies are building out fiber directly to the home. But not all; fiber is expensive. The question now is whether ISP spending will rise again to meet the new demand.

[Commentary] Americans should be concerned about the collection and storage of their communications under Executive Order 12333 than under Section 215.

Issued by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 to authorize foreign intelligence investigations, 12333 is not a statute and has never been subject to meaningful oversight from Congress or any court. Unlike Section 215, the executive order authorizes collection of the content of communications, not just metadata, even for US persons.

Executive Order 12333 contains nothing to prevent the National Security Agency from collecting and storing all such communications -- content as well as metadata -- provided that such collection occurs outside the United States in the course of a lawful foreign intelligence investigation. No warrant or court approval is required, and such collection never need be reported to Congress.

None of the reforms that President Barack Obama announced earlier this year will affect such collection.

[Tye served as section chief for Internet freedom in the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor from January 2011 to April 2014]

NASA is investigating ways to put commercial satellites into the planet's orbit. A network of privately funded satellite relays could take advantage of next-generation, laser-based data links capable of sending information back to Earth hundreds of times faster than the typical American broadband connection.

One section of AT&T’s network neutrality comments has caught the attention and earned the ire of some fans of neutrality regulations.

It has to do with the idea that in some cases, some of its customers might chose to, say, dedicate more of the bandwidth that they pay for to certain applications, effectively degrading others.

The Federal Communications Commission says more than 1 million people have now submitted comments on network neutrality. With the closing of the extended comment period looming, the FCC's net neutrality docket now has more comments than any other rulemaking proceeding.

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella announced that up to 18,000 of his employees will get pink slips by 2015, as part of a massive round of layoffs. The cuts are the largest in the company's history, and they will hit an estimated 15 percent of its workforce.

The job cuts will affect both "professional and factory" workers. Nadella plans to cut 12,500 jobs from Microsoft's mobile phone unit, the Nokia Devices and Services business, which Microsoft acquired this past spring.

Apple has agreed to pay e-book customers $400 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over its e-book pricing practices. But don't get too excited. The company is only going to pay under certain conditions.

The deal, struck with 33 state attorneys general, was prompted by the Justice Department's antitrust suit against Apple, which claimed the firm illegally colluded with book publishers to raise e-book prices.

If the court of appeals sends the case back to US District Court Judge Denise Cote , Apple has agreed to pay $50 million to settle its damages claim. And if the appeals court reverses the decision? "If we are vindicated by the appeals court, no settlement will be paid," the company said.

[Commentary] A Comcast customer service call from hell highlights something that isn't as easily quantified by cold, hard economic analysis. The Federal Communications Commission, one of two agencies along with the Justice Department charged with approving the merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable, typically considers the public interest as part of its mandate.

Consumer advocates argue that quality customer service ought to be included under that umbrella. Yet the very fact that people are making that case at all underscores how subjective the term "public interest" really is, and why it's sometimes easier to focus on what can be measured or projected numerically.