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The House Communications and Technology Subcommittee approved a bill to support Internet freedom despite Democrats' concern that it could undermine existing laws and regulations.

Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), the subcommittee's chairman, insisted the measure is only a statement of policy and would not repeal any existing rules. "As a matter of law, a statement of policy does not impose statutorily mandated responsibilities on an agency," Chairman Walden said. The bill would make it formal U.S. policy to "promote a global Internet free from government control and to preserve and advance the successful multi-stakeholder model that governs the Internet." But the Democrats expressed concern that a person or company could use the law as a basis to sue to overturn regulations, such as the Federal Communications Commission's network neutrality rules, which require Internet providers to treat Web traffic equally. After assurances from Republicans that they would work to revise the bill before a full committee vote, Democrats agreed not to derail the markup with a slew of amendments. The subcommittee approved the bill on a voice vote, with the Democrats dissenting.

As closely as local media companies watch — and have come to depend on — Facebook and Google, how reciprocal is the infatuation?

As Facebook's Kay Madati, head of entertainment and media, demonstrated, there might be something of a disjuncture with local media. Social engagement hinges on “likes,” he told attendees, "and if you can't get to 200,000 likes on a page, it's almost not worth it," he said. Cue the incredulity from television and radio managers who felt pretty good after crossing the 50,000 threshold. Madati made the impossible-to-dispute case that people are discovering and sharing new media content all the time on his platform, citing TV's Downton Abbey and Dallas reboot as recent examples of shows jet-boosted by their social lift. But he also added the impossible-to-quantify social media caveat: "Can I definitely tell you that it helps with the ratings? I can't," he said.

Now an integral part of everyday life, GPS makes it easy for users to pinpoint an exact location. This technology has a myriad of applications today, from street navigation to keeping track of your family or family pets. Although three-quarters of smartphone owners are using location-based services such as navigation apps, these capabilities largely have been limited to outdoor use. That’s all beginning to change as companies start to develop innovative technologies to bring GPS indoors. The retail industry is tapping indoor location technology, and ABI Research predicts the retail indoor location market will reach $5 billion in 2018. The technology delivers in-store directions to preferred products and personalized promotions directly to customers. Indoor location services have the potential to impact numerous industries, bringing new opportunities for engagement at every turn.

The Internet might have looked very different than it does today.

When Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina were building Mosaic, the browser that practically created the Web in 1993, they included the ability to annotate any page. Discussions immediately sprang up. But they quickly realized that the server to host the annotations would have had to scale to enormous size, which was not practical. So they took the feature out. What would the Web have looked like if annotation had managed to stay in? Maybe a million conversations would have bloomed, and some of the furious divides that plague this country would have been bridged. Or maybe it just would have been a deafening free-for-all, cranking up all the cranks.

Twenty years later, there is a vast amount of discussion on the Web, much of it in the form of comments and reviews. But it is generally hosted by corporations – Facebook, Google, Amazon – that are selling ads or products, which kind of undermines the democratic spirit of give and take. When the companies fail, like MySpace did, the content simply goes away.