Web Giants Form US Internet Lobby Group

judgecorp writes "Google, Facebook, eBay and Amazon have apparently set up the Internet Association to lobby the US government on issues relating to online business. From the article: 'The Internet Association, which will open its doors in September, will act as a unified voice for major Internet companies, said President Michael Beckerman, a former adviser to the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Committee.'"

Ick

[SomePgmr]

Put simply, there are too few "voices of conscience" in that list for my comfort.

Re:Call me a cynic but....

[justforgetme]

The Good: The greater web gets a voice in the US lobby
The Bad: The voice belongs to people who make fortunes about exploiting web participant's data...

Really this can be a win situation or a lose situation. No one will know until they actually bring something up.
Still it is very soon to be just running around yelling "Hurray"

Re:Got to be In it to win it...

[FriendlyLurker]

Agreed, however the biggest bidder of all is the Military Industrial Complex [wikipedia.org]. They have developed lots of new toys [slashdot.org] and techniques to "control crowds". All specifically designed so that you, citizen, are never allowed to trim that derelict hedge... ever. Just look at what they are throwing at Julian Assange/Wikileaks, the first modern journalist/publishing platform [salon.com] designed to inform citizens on how corrupt, dirty and vile our governments have really become.

The people's lobby

[Ginger Unicorn]

If laws are bought by the lobbiest with the most cash, why not start kickstarter campaigns for various sensible laws and see if we can outbid the corporations. Some laws are bought with surprisingly desultory amounts of cash. Not that's it's a particularly important law, but as an example i bet if you started a kickstarter to lobby for the legalisation of cannabis, you'd get millions. And for the abolition of the TSA.

Internet Cartel

[Doc Ruby]

This "association" is a gang of monopolists who grudgingly admit they can't eliminate each other as competition, so they join together to avoid competing. In other words, a cartel. That plans to enforce their cartel with government power.

Why not? They're basically 21st Century phone companies. The telco cartel worked out so well in the 20th Century that it hauled in many hundreds of $BILLIONS, and even wiretapped every American for years with impunity - forging the basis of power for this new generation cartel.

Re:Got to be In it to win it...

[daem0n1x]

As if the system is not personalised enough! People should vote for policies, not faces. We don't need any more vain politicians with bloated egos spitting out demagogic bullshit while taking bribes^H^H^H^H^H^H contributions from big corporations.

Re:Ick

[tehcyder]

I would be so happy to see a huge number of corporations in USA to form one coalition and build an army and send it to take down the fucking government, that would be a good start.

Scratch a libertarian and fascist blood comes out.

Lobbying should not be allowed

[Anonymous Coward]

RANT

Lobbyists are one of the major problems with the U.S. government, they serve no legitimate function and are nothing but vectors of corruption. Corporate apologists will argue that corporations need representation too but they would be lying to you. Corporations are made up of people, and each person (that is a citizen) has one vote, the same as everyone else. Corporations, through lobbyists, should not be allowed to buy specialty legislation (like the extension to copyright that was purchased by Disney). All legislation that comes out of Washington should support the public good, not a few of the rich and powerful.

/RANT