A profile of NetChoice, whose revenue jumped from $3M+ in 2020 to $34M in 2022, as the group prepares to fight for the tech industry before SCOTUS in February
Bloomberg : X: @jason_kint and @tonyajoriley X: Jason Kint / @jason_kint : I'm not taking sides on this but please dear heavens don't use “the industry” this loosely. IMHO, it's worse than the term “big tech.” Better to just say, “they will be fighting for Google.” Tonya Riley / @tonyajoriley : My Bloomberg News debut (!). A deep dive on the tech lobbying group that will be fighting for the industry in front of the Supreme Court this month. (tip @Techmeme) https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
NetChoice’s expansion builds on its earlier creation of a dedicated litigation center, moving its industry advocacy further into court-based challenges to state and local rules. Its growth also sits alongside an established campaign in which tech-backed trade groups spent heavily opposing federal antitrust proposals, including advertising against self-preferencing bills.
The Supreme Court fight matters because a ruling can shape the legal boundaries within which platforms and state lawmakers operate, making a trade group’s litigation capacity more consequential than conventional lobbying alone.
First-order effects
- NetChoice enters its Supreme Court fight with a substantially larger revenue base than it had in 2020, strengthening its ability to sustain industry legal advocacy.
- Google and other companies represented through the group gain a more visible collective vehicle for contesting policies that affect platform operations.
Second-order effects
- State lawmakers and advocacy groups face a better-resourced, centralized legal opponent, which can raise the cost and duration of defending state-level tech rules.
- Other trade associations may place greater weight on coordinated litigation alongside lobbying as court decisions become a primary route for shaping technology policy.
Third-order effects
- If this model persists, the courts may become an increasingly decisive policy arena for platform regulation, concentrating influence in organizations able to finance long-running constitutional and administrative-law challenges.
- That shift could make national legal precedent more important than state-by-state experimentation, though its scope depends on how the Supreme Court resolves individual cases.
The trend: Tech policy is increasingly being contested through well-funded strategic litigation, not only legislative lobbying and agency rulemaking.