CCIA Slams Congressional Representatives Who Unfairly Attack US Companies For Speaking Up Against SOPA

Politics

from the good-for-them dept

The folks over at CCIA have made a really good point. One of the most offensive parts of the SOPA debate is how supporters of the bill, mainly Lamar Smith, have missed absolutely no opportunity to slam Google at every turn, while at the same time going on and on about how he’s just trying to protect American jobs. Google and other SOPA critics are American companies with legitimate concerns. Attacking them by claiming they just want to profit from “piracy” isn’t just disingenuous, it’s an obnoxious and misleading attempt to avoid substantive debate:

The stimulative efforts of our companies in promoting freedom, democracy and more open societies is matched by no other industry in modern times. In the Middle East and around the world tech companies have stuck our necks out to be true to our principles. In contrast, we can think of other industries and companies that have sometimes worked hard to protect themselves and their markets by propping up status-quo repressive regimes.

Our companies have helped the Arab spring evolve and made it more possible for Russians to protest suspect elections. Our companies have sacrificed profits to withdraw from countries that would use our platforms to violate human rights. The most significant example was the costly decision by Google to pull search out of mainland China – the largest Internet market. That voluntary act, taken because of a commitment to principle and concerns about security and free expression was uplifting to many, though mocked by those for whom profit matters above all else.

It is, therefore, especially outrageous to suggest that any of our companies, and especially Google, who are opposed to this immature legislation do so because they greedily want to do business with rogue sites.

We are also proud that 3 of our members, among the largest US Internet companies [Yahoo, Microsoft and Google] have formed the GNI to defend global Internet freedom and condemn filtering and censorship.

It really is a pretty offensive political smear, considering the widespread opposition to SOPA from all sorts of individuals and companies that have absolutely nothing to do with piracy. Furthermore, even the idea that Google “profits from piracy” is pretty ridiculous. As we’ve seen from the various cases against sites, these sites make almost no money… and it’s extremely unlikely they make money from Google. Most don’t even appear to have Google ads, and for those that do, Google only makes money if people click on the ads, and people surfing these so-called “rogue sites” aren’t likely to be people clicking on ads.

Filed Under: copyright, politics, smears, sopa
Companies: ccia, google, microsoft, yahoo