One early winner in SOPA protest: Wikipedia
by Charles Cooper
commentary There’s talk that the online protests against the cybersiblings SOPA and PIPA constituted some sort of political coming of age moment for the tech industry. As if the tech moguls had “largely steered clear of lobbying and other political games in Washington” until now. Really? I love The New York Times but c’mon. This is the sort of fairy tale that sounds sweet but fails the smell test.
Silicon Valley has been looking to buy influence in Washington ever since tech companies started making serious money. Witness the sundry battles waged in the last couple of decades over a range of bread and butter issues including Internet tax breaks, the DMCA, or Internet porn laws. And let’s not forgot that not-so-insignificant 1998 dustup between the Justice Department and Microsoft over antitrust.
