Shira Ovide

Google, Facebook, Amazon and other big American tech companies collectively spend tens of billions of dollars each year on things like massive warehouses of computer and internet equipment that let them speed along your Instagram posts and home shopping purchases. You might have driven by some of these computing centers and never noticed them. But the tech giants’ efforts to make these boring workhorses more efficient and effective is one of the most important advancements in technology in the last decade.

A Q&A with New York Times technology reporter Cecilia Kang. 

Susan Crawford, a Harvard Law School professor, says the root of the digital divide is that big companies like AT&T and Comcast both control the internet pipelines and charge us to gain access to them. They don’t have an incentive to build affordable internet everywhere.

[Commentary] No matter what the Federal Communications Commission does, America's internet is not an equal place and it's only going to become less fair. The reality is big companies do have a privileged path into people's digital lives. They have the money and the technical ability to make sure their websites and internet videos speed through internet pipes without delays or hiccups. Web services from big companies such as Netflix and Google account for the majority of internet use during peak evening hours in North America. And even though Google doesn't need to pay AT&T or Verizon Co

The US (and the world) is in the midst of a sea change in how we spend our leisure time. Young people are less inclined to indulge in America's favorite pastime: zoning out in front of the TV. On average, people ages 18 to 24 spend half as much time watching live and recorded television as 35-to-49-year-old Americans, according to Nielsen.Young people are definitely watching video, but it's more likely something from YouTube or a friend's Snapchat story on their phone than the episode of "Grey's Anatomy" their parents are watching on the living room TV.

As TV changes accelerate, though, not enough people in the technology and entertainment industries are talking about a crucial issue: Can America’s expensive and inferior home and mobile internet networks handle it as more people shift from watching TV to having their entertainment delivered over the web? Even now, many home internet networks can't manage. Media and tech consulting firm Activate estimated only 12 percent of US households have fast enough internet speed to support multiple people watching TV online via services such as Sling TV. About 34 million Americans -- 10 percent of the population, and 39 percent in rural parts of the country -- have no access to fast home internet, according to an analysis by the Federal Communications Commissions.

Microsoft is opposing a US government demand for a user’s emails stored on company computers outside the country, in the latest example of tech companies’ willingness to challenge government information requests in the post-Snowden era.

Microsoft in a court filing dated June 6 said it opposed a search warrant for information on a user’s online emails stored in Microsoft’s Ireland data center.

“Congress has not authorized the issuance of warrants that reach outside US territory,” Microsoft wrote in the filing with US District Court in Manhattan.

Some legal experts said as a US company, Microsoft would have to comply with US court orders for emails or other customer information, whether data was stored in Seattle or Dubai. But Microsoft seems willing to test the patchwork of international laws on control of computerized information.

Long frustrated in efforts to collect payments from some users of its software in China and other emerging markets, Microsoft has enlisted help from an unlikely set of allies: attorneys general in states such as Louisiana and Oklahoma. Attorneys general don't typically get involved in overseas disputes involving companies from outside their state borders. But Microsoft has helped persuade attorneys general that overseas software piracy leads to job losses at manufacturing companies in their states.

That's because foreign manufacturers exporting products to the US can shave business expenses by using stolen software, gaining an unfair cost advantage over American rivals who pay for software, according to Microsoft and its allies, including the National Association of Manufacturers trade group.

The attorney general's office in Oklahoma recently filed suit against a Chinese maker of oil equipment, alleging it was stealing software written by Microsoft and others and gaining a cost advantage over Oklahoma-based competitors. The effort follows similar warning letters or lawsuits -- involving allegations against companies in Asia and Latin America -- filed over the past two years by attorneys general in California, Tennessee, Massachusetts and Washington State.