This one is from Politico. Quoting directly.
The Internet Association, once branded as Silicon Valley’s most important trade group in Washington, announced Wednesday that it is shutting down. The organization offered no specific reason for its decision to disband, which POLITICO had reported Tuesday night. But the group has struggled with financial woes after Microsoft pulled its support earlier this year. It has fought to maintain relevance on Capitol Hill despite being torn by competing pressures from its huge and smaller member companies on issues like antitrust.
And a relevant quote.
“This org could’ve saved itself years ago by kicking out everyone with a market cap greater than $500b (i.e., GAFA),” tweeted Yelp’s senior vice president of public policy, Luther Lowe, using a common industry acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon. “I made this suggestion to the leadership a few years ago, but it was shot down, so we quit.”
Why do we care?
The biggest companies have their own lobbyists. Ultimately, they don’t need these organizations, and as they aren’t figuring out that dynamic themselves.. that’s why they fail. IA was a single trade group. We saw CompTIA, another industry trade association, pull out of lobbying entirely.
And so we care because this leaves that need unanswered. The National Society of IT Service Providers is gearing up and working to step in that space for providers but isn’t there yet. With regulation top of mind for lawmakers around tech, it’s pretty essential to have a voice there… and from my vantage point, there are fewer representing us, not more.