US Federal Government Shutdown - How will it affect tech?

About 800,000 U.S. government employees are facing an unpaid vacation if Congress does not agree on a budget bill by midnight on Friday. The government shutdown could halt military pay, national park and museum operations, financial regulation and many other operations deemed “non-essential.”

Here’s how the shutdown could affect the tech world:

Hold That IPO!

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced on Thursday that it would not process any company filings in the case of a government shutdown, Reuters reports.

That means that IPO filings would be put on hold. A prolonged shutdown (unlikely, but possible) could affect companies late in the IPO process, like Zipcar, as well as companies that have filed but haven’t set terms yet, like LinkedIn.

Government Websites Go Dark?

A memo that Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew wrote to the heads of executive departments and agencies asked them to make determinations of whether their websites were essential or not, The Hill reports.

According to this memo, public access to government information doesn’t fall under this category. Websites necessary for operation like the IRS website for filing taxes, however, will remain open.

A Victory For Telemarketers And Spammers

According to a statement that the Federal Trade Commission posted on Friday, the Do Not Call Registry and Spam Database will not be available to law enforcement organizations in the case of a furlough.

Google And Microsoft Wait For Paychecks

It’s not just government employees who might find themselves without a paycheck should the government shut down. Hundreds of thousands of business who have contracts with the government might also be affected. Those companies include mid-size IT firms and giants like Google, which beat Microsoft out to be the provider of choice for the first federal agency to use either company’s cloud-based services. (Microsoft still holds a vast number of government contracts for its Office suite.)

Government BlackBerrys Get Switched Off

Some furloughed employees would either turn in their BlackBerrys or be banned from using them. CNNMoney reports that employees deemed “essential” will be permitted to continue checking essential emails on their BlackBerrys. Which begs the question of how these employees will know which emails are essential without reading them first.

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hum tringledown effect and then it hits us in our wallets when gas and grocery skyrocket worse then they r now geez i hope they made a plan now

the probably all went to disney land or something.

omg thank god they desided on something are troops will be paid friday but i think it because congress and all government off. seen dollar signs fall out of thier pockets hum governer and house res. too dont want to lose their fat checks they get omg they waste more money in one day they we cant make in a year ohya glad for or troops but government off. should take a cut in pay that would help more then bs crap they r doing

well this prove american goverment cant agree on much if going to have shut down becuase cant agree awesome :p

Fail, they will close "El Morro" and "El Yunque" for some days.

they not closing nothing hun they r rebuilding subposible i say this fire all big wigs and put the money back they have wasted on bs parties and flying all over the place in private jet thats what made them broke those huge dang paychecks and dinner parties at the the meriyahet grand hotel and guess what u got we flipped the bill for it all geez our government is wastiful no good back stabbers that said the economy is our fought uh no theirs cars for example use to buy a car under a 1000 bucks lucky if u find one under 10000 bucks im mean really inflation is killing us in 1 year here gas has went from 4.79to 1.50 and now is 3.98 a gallon geez weres the control at u money hungry people who dont care about us little people with no job living from paycheck to paycheck if ur lucky living on welifare cause u have nothing but ur shirts on ur back omg government here sux

Wellllll finally, i was waiting for this to happen. I know this whole thing wont affect me much (.. or at all ). Heh, now its time for those Congressional cro-magnons to actually work for their money.

They get paid too much for not doing anything anyways...>_>..

lighting u got that right those fat pay checks could help school get much need class space and save local liberaries that are being closed down not to mention in charlotte nc they are closing school also and these school have 30 to 50 kids in one class and they are closing these schools so now class sizes will double at other school and really fat me in suits need more money not lose ur paycheck like this poor children losing their schools liberaries and even headstart programs geez american is falling appart.