Web Giants Form US Internet Lobby Group 94
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.'"
Goal (Score:2, Interesting)
"Lets figure out how we can keep people communicating insecurely without privacy, while exploiting their ignorance and hunger for low-quality goods"
Ideally, this leads to a future with virtual cars that no longer consume gas. We just probably lack the proper MMORPG to represent life, but I am sure we can do wonders with some better government support. We just need to grease the wheels with more campaign contributions.
Call me a cynic but.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's a sad reflection on our political system that we need to do this.
The next question is will it be it be dishonest enough to grease the right palms and have some real influence?
But it's good that such a large industry now has a voice there.
Gee, thanks SOPA. Sort of. (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember this being something that came up during the fight over SOPA: Namely, that while the entertainment industry is used to lobbying the government, the tech industry was fractured and didn't see lobbying as a high priority, so the success Hollywood had at railroading some of those crazy ideas just blindsided them. (Stacked hearings, deliberately ignoring experts, etc.) It became clear that something would have to level the field, and since we know the RIAA, MPAA and friends aren't going to back off on their lobbying (and we know the government isn't going to stop listening to lobbyists), the solution is a tech lobby.
An Idea they should raise (Score:5, Interesting)
How about outlawing Software Patents? It costs them more than it costs me, and it isn't even a barrier to entry.
Re:I'm 50-50 on this, I guess. (Score:4, Interesting)
"they [facebook] contribute little back"
http://opencompute.org/ [opencompute.org]
https://github.com/facebook/ [github.com]
Facebook is giving back some rather large projects to the global open source community.