[governance] Understanding the IT Lobby - An eye opener

[Riaz K Tayob]

Fouad

I will look through the documents you post sometime soon. But it is not 
just lobbyists but also a range of other players, including in civil 
society, that IMHO act as lobbyists (one need only look at the positions 
of some "progressives" in the CIR debate) and who openly argued for what 
I see as US exceptionalism (I know this was denied by some on this list, 
but I have personal experience on this, so...).

The point is that public interest itself is something that needs to be 
contested. It is not just one's location as a lobbyist or civil society 
grouping (for instance on some of the SOPA stuff, the lobbyists of some 
tech companies had a lot in common with public interest groups - which 
may make them allies, but whether they are dependable or not remains to 
be seen) that matters... so some articles drawing the lines in the sand 
around civil society groups may also be interesting...

Riaz

On 2012/01/06 02:22 AM, Fouad Bajwa wrote:
> In the past, the following document was something that helped in
> better understanding the business side of lobbying. I have attempted
> to understand in the context of Internet related lobbying which is
> related. The following document provides a reasonably deep insight
> into how the industry carries out IT Lobbying and what issues make it
> do so:
>
> http://actonline.org/publications/2008/08/05/understanding-the-it-lobby-an-insiders-guide/
> http://actonline.org/publications/files/rcpg61911proof.pdf
>
> Similarly, the word Free as in Free Software is also not welcome by
> many lobbyists in the above area:
> http://actonline.org/publications/files/090622-act-paying-for-free-vfinalweb.pdf
>
> With SOPA, DCMA, ACTA and so forth, it seems that in no manner do
> lobbyists want to think outside of a US-Centric Internet and IPR
> Interest system. Profits will never account to freedoms I suppose at
> any stage.
>
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t