Yahoo joins tech firms leaving ALEC

Yahoo is the latest tech firm to drop its associations with the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council.

In a statement shared with The Hill on Thursday, a spokesman said that the company has “decided to discontinue our membership in ALEC.”

{mosads}“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,” the spokesman added.

The move comes after the announcement that several other major tech and Internet companies are planning to or have already abandoned the organization, which lobbies state governments for conservative policies and often drafts model bills for legislatures.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said that his company would leave the group on Monday. He accused ALEC of “literally lying” on climate change and said that Google’s support had been a “mistake.”

ALEC has denied that it is a skeptic of climate change and accused Google of acting on “misinformation from climate activists.” 

Facebook has also said that it is likely to leave the organization when its current membership expires. 

Yelp had been under pressure to leave ALEC as well, and said this week that it did so several months ago, after joining in 2013 for help on a single issue.

Yahoo, Facebook and Yelp did not specify whether their decision to leave ALEC was based on its stance on climate change.