CompTIA Policy Issues

Public Policy Issues By Topic

Initiative for Software Choice (ISC)
The Initiative for Software Choice (ISC) is a global coalition of large and small companies committed to advancing the concept that multiple competing software markets should be allowed to develop and flourish unimpeded by government preference or mandate.

techVoice
The role of techVoice.org is to help educate, motivate, and channel the views of IT workers to policymakers, and encourage these government influencers to pass legislation that helps both the economy and the IT industry to grow and flourish.

e-Skills Certification Consortium (eSCC)
The eSCC aims to develop mechanisms leading to the endorsement and/or recognition of industry and other non-formal certifications by public sector authorities in the EU Member States.

Summary of CompTIA's 2006 U.S. Public Policy Statement

E-Commerce and the Internet

  • Government should encourage and support the wider use of the Internet across all sectors, doing so with regulatory restraint when addressing new legal and policy questions.
  • In a young, global and dynamic medium like the Internet, normal government regulation is often not the most effective means to protect consumers' overarching privacy, security and safety interests.
  • Consumers will benefit most from a combination of enforcement of existing regulations/laws; consumer education; technology tools and industry best practices, with new Internet-specific regulations considered only if other techniques fail.

Telecommunications

  • CompTIA supports government policies that stimulate competition-driven solutions, innovation and investment.
  • Regulations that were designed for the 19th and 20th centuries should not, as a general rule, be applied to advanced and converged information networks of the 21st century, such as the Internet.

Cyber Security

  • Because of the global, private nature of the Internet and other data networks, ensuring the security of cyberspace must be the primary responsibility of the private sector.
  • Government cyber security-oriented regulations run the risk of becoming both obsolete and unenforceable and should therefore be avoided in favor of industry best practices, technology tools, education and training.
  • No approach to cyber security - public or private - could be effective without an adequately trained and certified workforce; there must be a greater attention to workforce training and certification as well as the development of best cyber security practices to combat cyber security challenges.

Education, Workforce and the Information Technology Sector

  • In the 21st Century, information technology workforce skills are essential in every profession and in every country; largely determining whether a workforce is globally competitive and whether it will experience economic gains.
  • CompTIA encourages strong government programs - i.e., government stipends, grants, tax incentives, etc. - that support IT training for IT workers and non-IT workers, as well as educational programs that prepare students for the job markets of the 21st Century.
  • If IT workforce shortages occur in any one country, governments should not erect barriers to the use of skilled workers from other countries.

Fair Treatment of the Computer Industry in Environmental Policies

  • We support sensible government policies that uniformly address the recycling of computer equipment through a unified and comprehensive industry-based approach that relies on existing environmental programs and promotes the development of needed infrastructure and encourages reuse options.

Government Procurement of IT Goods and Services

  • CompTIA supports competitive, open and technology-neutral government procurement policies for IT goods and services.
  • We believe that governments should: procure software and hardware on their merits, not through categorical preferences; promote the broad availability of government-funded research; promote interoperability through platform-neutral standards; and maintain a choice of strong intellectual property protections.

Intellectual Property (IP)

  • Intellectual property is the cornerstone of the information technology industry, without which it could not survive. We therefore support efforts to strengthen global IP protections, enforcement mechanisms to deter piracy, and harmonized practices in such fields as patent, copyright and trademark.
  • We believe that when innovative IT technologies and practices introduce new issues relating to IP protection, marketplace solutions are generally more effective than government mandates.

Government Role in Promoting Competition

  • CompTIA supports consistent enforcement of clearly defined antitrust laws that protect consumers interests.
  • Government practices that contribute to economic/market efficiencies and benefit consumers should not be discouraged.
  • Government practices that are designed to solely address perceived market inequities should be avoided, especially if they are used to advance protectionist trade policies.
  • Government forays beyond mainstream antitrust theory make it much more difficult to distinguish permissible from impermissible conduct, introducing undesirable uncertainty in the IT sector.

Abusive Lawsuits in the Information Technology Sector

  • Abuses of the legal system, particularly in class action lawsuits, can cost technology companies enormous sums in legal fees, and may harm job creation and innovation.
  • Governments should take steps to avoid abusive practices (including, among others, abuses in patent cases), clarify responsibilities, and ensure fairness to all parties.
  • Tech companies should not be singled out by governments for needless regulations that engender unduly complicated and costly product return practices.

International Trade in IT Good and Services

  • CompTIA supports open international markets and the free movement of capital investment, technology and corporate personnel for trade in IT products and services and opposes efforts to erect tariff and non-tariff barriers to such international trade.

Promoting Global Competitiveness in the IT Sector

  • CompTIA believes that government regulators should be cautious when they consider the imposition of new regulations on small IT businesses or the extension of existing regulations that may hamper their ability to compete globally.

Making Employees into Owners of IT Businesses

  • CompTIA urges governments to encourage employers, particularly small businesses, to grant stock options to employees, particularly lower wage employees.
  • Governments should not take steps to discourage this practice by requiring that the granting of stock options be shown as if it were a company's expense.

Fair Tax Treatment for the IT Sector

  • In general, particularly for small IT businesses, taxes should be simplified and updated to better accord with the challenges of the rapidly evolving New Economy.
  • Governments should employ tax incentives to encourage such economically and socially desirable activity as computer training and certification, the purchase by small businesses of computer hardware and software, and investments in research and development.
  • Governments should be careful to not impose taxes that directly or indirectly either discourages the wider use of IT by all sectors, or that discriminate against purchases or activities that occur in the digital environment.

Spectrum Principles

  • A national spectrum policy that efficiently allocates radio spectrum, protects against harmful interference to licensed services, and provides market flexibility, while maintaining technological neutrality, will promote innovation and competition.
  • Because emerging wireless technologies, including those using unlicensed spectrum, have the potential to deliver enormous benefits to consumers and business users, CompTIA calls on the FCC and other relevant bodies to allocate adequate and appropriate spectrum for licensed and unlicensed services.

CompTIA's Industry Convergence and Consolidation Principle

  • CompTIA believes the most prudent course of action for federal, state, and local policymakers is to permit the industry to restructure consistent with evolving technologies, economic conditions, and marketplace demands, and develop the necessary measures to sufficiently ensure that business and consumer interests are satisfied in a convergent and consolidated information technology and telecommunications marketplace.
  • CompTIA opposes any laws, regulations or taxes that discriminate against eCommerce, and/or the enabling telecommunications and Internet networks, as compared with other forms of commerce.

Containment of Health Care Costs through Information Technology

  • CompTIA supports efforts that lead to affordable and quality healthcare; accordingly, we support initiatives that will lead to increased efficiencies in the health care system through the use of information technology.