A group of 14 Internet juggernauts such as Facebook, Google, eBay, Amazon.com, Zynga, Yahoo and others have formed a brand new lobbying group in the United States called The Internet Association to counter efforts by federal regulators to strap new rules to their sector.
Notably absent from the list are other Web industry giants like Microsoft and Apple, despite the organization billing itself as the ‘unified voice of the Internet economy in Washington’.
The trade association will be led by President and CEO (and Capitol Hill vet) Michael Beckerman and counts the following 14 firms among its members – in alphabetical order: Amazon.com, AOL, eBay, Expedia, Facebook, Google, IAC, LinkedIn, Monster, Rackspace, Salesforce.com, TripAdvisor, Yahoo and Zynga.
Beckerman recently stepped down as a top aide to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton.
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This is the official coming-out party: word about the new association got out some time ago. From the formal announcement:
The member companies have joined forces to form The Internet Association, an umbrella public policy organization dedicated to strengthening and protecting a free and innovative Internet.
The Internet Association will relentlessly represent this critical economic sector, in partnership with Main Street businesses and individual users, to ensure that the Internet will always have a voice in Washington and a seat at the table.
The group’s policy platform is based on three planks, it says: protecting Internet freedom, fostering innovation and economic growth, and empowering users.
Its purpose statement:
Protect the freedom and innovation of the Internet, one of the greatest engines for economic growth and prosperity the world has ever known.
Hard to be against that.
(Image Credit: Mark Wilson / Getty Images)
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