The Internet Association Sends Trump Its Wish List

A trade group representing many of the country’s most well-known technology companies sent an open letter to President-elect Donald Trump, sidestepping the industry’s near universal opposition to his candidacy and laying out a laundry list of policy priorities for the next four years. The letter called for Trump to leave most internet regulations untouched.

Michael Beckerman, president and chief executive officer of the Internet Association, congratulated the president-elect on his victory, and presented him with a 10-page policy agenda. Beckerman’s group represents Silicon Valley giants like Amazon, Facebook, and Google, as well as tech’s biggest startups, like Airbnb and Uber. The document released Monday is notable in that the same list of priorities could have been sent to a President-elect Hillary Clinton, or written two years ago.

"The internet represents the best of American innovation, freedom and ingenuity," Beckerman wrote. "Businesses of all sizes are able to connect with new customers at the touch of a button and compete on a global scale in ways impossible just a decade ago. Nowhere was this more apparent than your use of the internet to connect with, and energize voters throughout the campaign."

The association's letter is the latest signal that Silicon Valley is looking to move past conflicts over Trump’s incendiary comments about minorities and women and get back to business as usual.

While Trump’s views on many technology issues remain somewhat of a mystery, there are several key areas where he’s likely to clash with the industry. The Internet Association didn’t take a position in the presidential race, but it supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade agreement that Trump maligned regularly during his campaign. Many of the proposals in the letter center on how future trade agreements should maximize the free flow of data across borders by eliminating laws that, for example, require information to be stored locally.

The group also wants these agreements to enshrine American standards on issues like copyright and protection for websites against being held accountable for content posted by their users. Trump hasn’t laid out clear approaches to these issues, aside from staking a more confrontational approach to trade agreements in general.