Headquarters Washington, D.C., United States Similar Computer & Communi, Independent Institute, Center for Democracy and Tech | ||
The Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) is a trade association representing over 3,000 application software developers and small and mid-sized technology companies in the United States and in Europe. ACT was founded in 1998 by independent software developers who were concerned that the Microsoft antitrust case would cause great disruption of the platform for which they wrote software. The organization is a voice of app developers whose issues primarily involve:
- A competitive ecosystem in the mobile marketplace providing app developers with the best opportunities;
- Strong support for intellectual property rights;
- Limited government involvement in technology (such as antitrust actions or mandates to use free software / open source software instead of proprietary alternatives); and
- Concern that governance of global internet infrastructure maintain a balance of government and industry interests;
The Association for Competitive Technology has played a prominent role in educating lawmakers and regulators on technology issues affecting app developers. The organization has testified multiple times before House and Senate Committees and has briefed White House and administration officials about the challenges and concerns app developers face.
ACT has also been prominent at conferences across the country speaking to developers about privacy issues that confront this nascent marketplace. The group has sponsored hackathons, developer camps and regularly encourages app makers to go to Washington DC to meet their elected officials.
In 2011, ACT testified before the House Judiciary Committee on children's online privacy protections, before the Senate Judiciary Committee on privacy and location-based services, before the Senate Commerce Committee on mobile privacy issues, and before the House Administration Committee on improving Congress's use of tablets and other paperless communications measures.
In 2010, ACT testified before the House Judiciary Committee on competition in the mobile marketplace and before the Senate Finance Committee on international trade in the digital economy.
In recent years (circa 2005–2007), ACT lobbied against the Massachusetts endorsement of the OpenDocument standards.
While its original purpose was to support Microsoft, it has other large, independent sponsors such as eBay, Oracle, Intel and VeriSign.
On March 9, 2006, the President of ACT, Jonathan Zuck wrote an opinion piece which was published on news.com, criticising the Free Software Foundation's plan to fight digital rights management (DRM) with the new version 3.0 of the GNU General Public License.
A draft of a European Commission strategy paper on open source software with modifications by ACT's Jonathan Zuck was leaked (via Wikileaks) in February 2009, showing, in the words of Linux Journal, "how lobbyists operate in their attempt to neuter threats to their constituencies through the shameless evisceration and outright inversion of content."