May 2014

In January, President Barack Obama asked me to lead a wide-ranging review of "big data" and privacy -- to explore how these technologies are changing our economy, our government, and our society, and to consider their implications for our personal privacy. Together with Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, the President's Science Advisor John Holdren, the President's Economic Advisor Jeff Zients, and other senior officials, our review sought to understand what is genuinely new and different about big data and to consider how best to encourage the potential of these technologies while minimizing risks to privacy and core American values.

On May 1, we presented our findings to the President. We knew better than to try to answer every question about big data in three months. But we are able to draw important conclusions and make concrete recommendations for Administration attention and policy development in a few key areas.

Our review raised the question of whether the "notice and consent" framework, in which a user grants permission for a service to collect and use information about them, still allows us to meaningfully control our privacy as data about us is increasingly used and reused in ways that could not have been anticipated when it was collected. Big data raises other concerns, as well.

One significant finding of our review was the potential for big data analytics to lead to discriminatory outcomes and to circumvent longstanding civil rights protections in housing, employment, credit, and the consumer marketplace.

We make six actionable policy recommendations in our report to the President: 1) Advance the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, 2) Pass National Data Breach Legislation, 3) Extend Privacy Protections to non-U.S. Persons, 4) Ensure Data Collected on Students in School is used for Educational Purposes, 5) Expand Technical Expertise to Stop Discrimination, and 6) Amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

[Podesta is a Counselor to the President]

The Department of Justice has reached a settlement with eBay that prevents the company from entering into or maintaining agreements with other companies restraining employee recruitment and hiring.

The department’s Antitrust Division filed the proposed settlement in the US District Court for the Northern District of California in San Jose. If approved by the court, the settlement would resolve the department’s competitive concerns and the original lawsuit filed on Nov 16, 2012.

In its lawsuit, the department alleged that senior executives and directors of eBay and Intuit entered into an agreement, beginning no later than 2006, that prevented each firm from recruiting employees from the other and that prohibited eBay from hiring Intuit employees that approached eBay.

The agreement between eBay and Intuit diminished important competition between the firms to attract highly skilled technical and other employees to the detriment of affected employees who had less access to better job opportunities and higher pay. The proposed settlement would prohibit eBay from entering or maintaining anticompetitive agreements relating to employee hiring and retention for five years.

[Commentary] There are a few reasons why the Federal Communications Commission’s Open Internet proposal doesn’t quite go far enough in creating strong network neutrality rules.

I’d like to concentrate on one in particular. The FCC’s proposal invites Internet Service Providers to choose winners and losers online. Even though the proposal explicitly says that ISPs will not be able to block or discriminate against websites, the commercial reasonableness standard within the new proposal leads one to believe otherwise.

The baseline concept of network neutrality prevents discrimination and traffic bias. But the concept of commercial reasonableness is steeped in discrimination and bias.

It’s very difficult to see how this standard, which inherently offers less protection than the previous Open Internet Rules, can serve the same policy goals. And from a competitive standpoint, there are a slew of reasons that large ISPs have to avoid partnerships with their competitors. Point blank, the new proposal offers less protection than the previous Open Internet Rules.

Additionally, the FCC’s call to approach discrimination on a case-by-case basis creates uncertainty, and disadvantages small businesses and entrepreneurs.

[Cox is the director of media relations at Public Knowledge]

Media company Viacom has significantly expanded its international footprint by buying television outlet Channel 5 Broadcasting in Britain.

Viacom -- which owns cable channels MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central -- said it has agreed to pay nearly $760 million to British press baron Richard Desmond for the over-the-air channel.

Several other US media companies had been interested in Channel 5, which launched in 1997 as Britain's fifth public broadcasting service. The channel notches more than 42 million viewers a month.

“The acquisition of Channel 5 accelerates Viacom’s strategy in the UK, one of the world’s most important and valuable media markets,” Viacom Chief Executive Philippe Dauman said in a statement announcing the move. "We believe we will be able to invest in even more programming for Channel 5," Dauman told analysts. He said Viacom would pay cash for the channel.