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Does President Barack Obama owe his re-election to superior algorithms?

That question may sound a bit facetious, given that Mitt "47 percent" Romney at times seemed to be going out of his way to hand the election to the Chicago incumbent, and also given Mr. Obama's not-inconsiderable abilities on the campaign trail. But to political pros, Team Obama's use of data management, guided by algorithms, was no laughing matter, and the Obama re-elect's chief scientist lifted the veil somewhat on exactly what they were up to in their Prudential Building headquarters. Rayid Ghani, an artificial intelligence expert who lead the Obama data effort, told the audience that the campaign decided early on to emphasize data collection and use and stuck with it, to great effect.

On Barack Obama's very first full day as President in 2009, he issued a memorandum to the heads of federal agencies that said, in so many words, time to get serious about the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). "The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails," Obama declared. He continued, "All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government." Two months later, Attorney General Eric Holder issued new guidelines to agency heads, urging them to streamline their FOIA process and make more information available. But despite this urging, many agencies haven't exactly prioritized FOIA compliance.

A new audit from the National Security Archive found that 62 of the 99 government agencies have not updated their FOIA regulations since then and the vast majority of those -- 56 -- have not even updated them since the passage of the OPEN Government Act of 2007, which "mandated that agencies reform their fee structures, institute request tracking numbers, publish specific data on their FOIA output, and cooperate with the new FOIA mediators at the Office of Government Information Services." Additionally, only six agencies (NARA, the EPA, Commerce, Treasury, the Federal Labor Relations Authority, and the Merit Systems Protection Board) have joined FOIAonline, a one-stop shop for making and tracking FOIA requests. Government agencies are not known for being nimble but this kind of foot-dragging is the result of more than some sort of inherent difficulty in the task: Administrators who are capable and care about FOIA can (and have) made progress. The problem lies in getting the slower agencies to follow the president's directive.

European Union antitrust regulators have not yet made a decision in their case against Google and are still talking to the Internet search firm to resolve complaints that it used its clout to block rivals. Google offered concessions to the European Commission in July to try to head off a possible fine of up to $4 billion or 10 percent of its 2011 revenues if the regulators find Google breached the rules. The EU executive Commission is examining the proposals before deciding whether to accept them or demand more. "We are in the process of conversation with Google to try to reach a settlement, but we are not there yet," said EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia.

Internet users in Europe may be allowed to copy parts of some copyrighted files legally under reforms to outdated rules governing the murky world of online piracy, EU officials said. Entertainment and software companies, who say they are losing billions of dollars of revenues to pirates, have been lobbying the bloc to outlaw all unlicensed copying and sharing of their digital films, music and applications. But the bloc's executive, the European Commission, said it was hoping to find a middle ground that would let legitimate users copy parts of some files - while clamping down on serious criminals.