14 DAY TRIAL // Although Yelp shows up on the list of members of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the online service isn’t actually a member anymore. In fact, Yelp quietly exited through the back door a while back.
The company joined ALEC last year because it was trying to solve one big issue it was facing – businesses they were listing reviews about were bullying people to give them better ratings. The controversial lobbying group was pushing an anti SLAPP law at the time, which stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation.”
Basically, they were trying to make it harder to sue people as a way to refuse them the right to free speech. Since many businesses have sued Yelp commenters over negative reviews, this was just right up the company’s alley.
Businessweek reports that Luther Lowe, Yelp’s director of government affairs states, however, that after ALEC adopted the model anti-SLAPP legislation back in July, Yelp ended its association with the group. “We took a lot of heat on this, but we went in with this very pro-consumer bill, and we succeeded,” Lowe said.
He added that during some meetings with ALEC, he urged the group to become more transparent about its operations, mentioning that if these meetings were broadcasted, people would see dull policy debates.
Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that the views the lobbying group has are rather extreme and clearly in defense of the business interests of the member companies. The attitude towards net neutrality echoes that of Comcast, Verizon and Time Warner, while the views on climate change seem to fit the agenda of the oil companies within the group.
ALEC denies being against climate change regulations
ALEC’s spokesperson, Bill Meirling, says that it’s unfortunate they are losing members, taking some of the blame for the lack of effective communication on their part. Meirling claims that the group’s opposition to mandates on renewable energy standards shouldn’t put it on the wrong side of the climate change debate, saying that they’re against the mandate, not against renewable energy sources.
Google’s Eric Schmidt says that the group’s position regarding climate change is what drove it to cut its ties to ALEC.
“Everyone understands that climate change is occurring, and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and grandchildren and making the world a much worse place. And we should not be aligned with such people. They’re just literally lying,” Google’s executive chairman mentioned.
Since then, Facebook and Yahoo have also announced their exit from the group, while Microsoft took the same step some months back.