Anti-ALEC Activists Pressure eBay to Drop Conservative Group

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/anti-alec-activists-pressure-ebay-to-drop-conservative-group-20141007


More than 80 organizations are asking the e-commerce company to follow the lead of Google and other tech giants and divorce itself from the American Legislative Exchange Council.

BY DUSTIN VOLZ

Online auction site eBay will report quarterly earnings today after the market closes today. (Getty Images)
October 7, 2014 More than 80 organizations on Tuesday will urge eBay to end its affiliation with the American Legislative Exchange Council.

In a letter addressed to eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and other top executives, a coalition of mostly left-leaning environmental and public-interest groups will pressure the e-commerce website to follow the lead of other prominent tech companies that have in recent weeks chosen to divorce from ALEC, a conservative coalition of state legislators and corporations, National Journal has learned.

"The recent exodus of technology corporations was in part due to concerns over ALEC's extreme views; that extreme agenda includes denying the science of climate change, defunding public services, curtailing workers' rights, and opposing net neutrality," said the letter, whose signatories include the Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters, and the AFL-CIO.

The targeting of eBay mirrors the tactics deployed a month ago against Google, which also received a letter from a similar batch of progressive groups agitated with the company's continued funding of ALEC. That missive ultimately paid off, as weeks later Google Chairman Eric Schmidt publicly admonished ALEC for "just literally lying" about climate change and announced that the search giant was leaving the conservative nonprofit.

FULL story at link.