Keep the exodus going — tell eBay to be the next tech leader to leave ALEC!

Online giant AOL Inc, has decided to end its membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Common Cause has learned; a company official confirmed the move today and said the decision was made “a number of weeks ago.”

AOL becomes the latest in a series of major tech companies to cut ties with the secretive corporate lobbying group. Microsoft announced its departure in August. A month later, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt declared on a nationally-broadcast radio program that ALEC was “literally lying” about climate change and that Google’s funding for the organization was a “mistake.” Following Google’s lead, Facebook, Yelp, Yahoo, International Paper, Occidental Petroleum, News Corp, Overstock.com, and SAP have all confirmed that they have left or are planning to leave ALEC.

More than 21,000 Common Cause activists have signed a petition asking AOL to leave ALEC. AOL previously was a member of ALEC’s Communications and Technology Task Force and Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force. While AOL has been a corporate leader in fighting for Open Internet protections, ALEC has lobbied against those policies.

ALEC, founded in the 1970s, connects corporate lobbyists and executives with hundreds of state legislators across the country. The group entertains the lawmakers at annual seminars where it and its corporate members pick up the tab for travel and hotel expenses and vote as equals with the elected officials on “model” bills often drafted by lobbyists. Legislators typically introduce that legislation without acknowledging its origins in ALEC.

Common Cause está llevando adelante una denuncia por “denuncia de irregularidades” tributaria contra ALEC ante el Servicio de Impuestos Internos, acusando a la organización de hacerse pasar por una organización benéfica mientras funciona como un lobby corporativo. El estatus tributario sin fines de lucro de ALEC permite a sus partidarios corporativos deducir sus contribuciones a la organización en sus declaraciones de impuestos corporativos, lo que en efecto proporciona un subsidio tributario para el lobby de ALEC.