Facebook, Yahoo and Yelp have all decided to leave the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), about a day after Google's executive chairman announced Google's break with the organization.
Microsoft left in August, but Schmidt announced Google was leaving Tuesday on a radio show where he also accused ALEC of "literally lying about climate change," according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. As we wrote, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt said that Google ALEC was a "mistake."
“We have decided to discontinue our membership in ALEC: We periodically review our membership in organizations and at this time, we will no longer participate in the ALEC Task Force on Communications and Technology,” Yahoo said in a statement.
There have been several protests against ALEC, which have pushed corporations such as Amazon, to quit the group. Others, including General Motors, Proctor and Gamble an Coca-Cola, have also dropped out.
“We reevaluate our memberships on an annual basis, and are in that process now,” Facebook told the P-I. “While we have tried to work with ALEC to bring that organization closer to our views on some key issues, it seems unlikely that we will make sufficient progress, so we are not likely to renew our membership in 2015.”
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Yelp, however, said it didn't like the group's lack of transparency. ALEC denies it's a climate change denier.
It's not surprising that Facebook, Yahoo and Yelp followed suit after Google publicly left the controversial organization. As we wrote earlier, it seems as if Google may have joined ALEC without looking too deeply into its politics. Now that both Microsoft and Google have left the group, it would be wise for Yahoo and Facebook to make similar exits or be tainted by a group that advocates climate change skepticism be taught in schools. Its seems those companies agreed with us.
