Dive Brief:
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The Internet Association wants to ensure the internet is top-of-mind for President-elect Donald Trump when he takes over in January.
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On Monday the group sent a letter and policy roadmap asking the Trump Administration and Congress for help supporting "key policy areas that have allowed the internet to grow, thrive and ensure its continued success and ability to create jobs throughout our economy."
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One area of particular focus is encryption. The Internet Association characterizes encryption as "critical to national and individual security" and urges the Trump Administration to support strong encryption "which in turn will make America more secure."
Dive Insight:
The roadmap touches on nine areas including privacy, security and cross-border data flows.
Trump has not painted himself as a digital champion thus far. He supported the FBI’s efforts to breach an iPhone used by one of the assailants in the San Bernardino terrorist attack last December, even going so far as to suggest people boycott Apple for blocking the effort.
The encryption debate is sure to come around again soon since there was no decision made over whether the FBI could force Apple to produce an encryption work around for its product for national security.
Internet Association President and CEO Michael Beckerman said in the letter that he hopes the Trump administration and Republicans and Democrats in Congress will work with it to "implement policies that promote innovation and cement the internet’s role as a driver of economic and social progress for future generations." The internet sector represented nearly 6% of GDP and 3 million jobs in 2014, according to the group.
Internet Association member companies include Google, Facebook, Salesforce, Uber and Yahoo, among others.
