CTRL-ALT-Delete? The internet industry’s D.C. powerhouse vanishes. - POLITICO

The Internet Association once brokered deals on tech legislation. But its role has shrunk amid the industry's divides and changes under a new CEO.

Then-Internet Association President and CEO Michael Beckerman speaks with then-President Donald Trump in 2018. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo

The Internet Association has been shedding staff, losing influence on Capitol Hill and shrinking to near-obscurity in media coverage of tech policy debates in Washington, even as the industry faces controversies ranging from alleged monopolization to privacy to how it treats its legions of workers.

The declining prominence of IA, a nine-year-old group that used to call itself “the unified voice of the internet economy,” comes as a larger fragmentation is splitting the tech industry’s lobbying efforts into factions, according to more than a dozen current and former employees, congressional aides and tech company employees who spoke to POLITICO on condition of anonymity. But they said the association’s internal dysfunction has also diminished its impact in Congress and in public debates about Silicon Valley’s expanding array of lawsuits, legislation and regulatory threats.

In its place, other tech-focused advocacy groups — including a new startup headed by a former Google executive — have stepped into the void to speak for the companies on antitrust, a hot policy topic that IA declines to weigh in on.

Leave a Comment