From the ‘Fact Checking’ files:
There are a lot of BIG tech vendors that aren’t talking about SOPA.
Yes, I know there has been lots of noise about SOPA in recent weeks, but I was surprised to discover how few of the vendors that I regularly write about have an official view on the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA).
Here’s what various vendors told me (or didn’t):
IBM – “We’re not commenting on SOPA.”
Cisco- “We have not taken a formal position on this legislation and really can’t comment at this time.”
Juniper Networks – “Juniper does not have a comment on SOPA; there are still negotiations going on between the senate and the house, and we’re watching it as it evolves.”
Symantec and VeriSign spokespersons also told me that they had no comment on SOPA.
Red Hat and McAfee didn’t get back to me at all, either way if they have any views on SOPA (and the list goes on and on).
So while there are a number of very vocal online entities (Wikipedia blackout this week!) there are also a non-trivial amount of vendors that are strangely silent. Then again, to be fair, until this past weekend, the White House had not formally voiced it’s opinion in strong language either. I also asked these vendor over the holiday period and beginning of the year, (when let’s face, no one really wants to work anyways).
Now on the business side, all of the the vendors in my list above are also all infrastructure type players and all of them have large government contracts of some type, meaning it might be politically expedient for them to be on the sidelines (for the most part). At this point, thanks to regular people signing petitions and standing up against SOPA, it looks likely that this will never pass Congress. But it is still interesting to note where everyone stands.
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist