Internet groups and tech industry veterans are drawing battle lines over an Obama nominee for a key trade position.

While major tech companies say Robert Holleyman - who President Obama nominated to be Deputy U.S. Trade Representative last month - has the tech industry experience to help lead the nation¡¯s trade agency, Internet advocacy groups worry that the pick would harm the open Internet.

In 2010, Obama appointed Holleyman to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations, a group of private sector representatives tasked with advising the USTR.

When Holleyman left the trade group last year, he was replaced by Victoria Espinel, former Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator for the White House.

Internet advocacy groups are petitioning against Holleyman's nomination, describing him as a lobbyist for the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which stalled in Congress after facing a massive backlash from the Internet community.

The groups - including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Demand Progress - have expressed concern about Holleyman's role in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal between the U.S. and countries in Asia and South America that has gotten considerable attention for its proposed copyright provisions.

"Obama's choice to appoint a prominent supporter of the spectacularly failed SOPA bill indicates the White House's unwillingness to let up on its extreme stance on copyright enforcement," Maira Sutton, global policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote in a blog post.

In an online petition, Demand Progress urged members to "tell the U.S. Senate not to let the salesman for an awful bill become the architect of a monstrous treaty."

"If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Holleyman would be working to ensure that anti-free speech, anti-Internet, copyright fundamentalism is in enshrined in the Trans-Pacific Partnership for good," the group's Executive Director David Segal said in a statement.

Joining the backlash against Holleyman is Credo Action, the advocacy arm of telecom company Credo Mobile.

"We need to make sure the Senate knows that we expect them to take a stand for Internet freedom and reject the nomination of Robert Holleyman," Credo Action wrote in its petition.

According to Credo Action, more than 150,000 have signed either its petition or the one hosted by Demand Progress.

At the same time, CEOs of major tech companies are backing Holleyman for the job.

In a letter to Senate leadership last week, the CEOs of eight major companies - including IBM, Dell, Intel and Qualcomm - pushed for a "swift confirmation" for Holleyman.

"Robert Holleyman is just the sort of person we need as a U.S. Trade Representative," the group of tech executives wrote, citing Holleyman's "business, policy and global experience."

The CEOs noted the importance of international trade to the tech industry - "The U.S. exported more than $270 billion in information and communications technologies in 2012" - and pointed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership as well as ongoing trade negotiations with Europe.

USTR Michael Froman "needs a strong team to complete these negotiations and ensure that our existing trade agreements continue to deliver benefits to U.S. companies and workers," they wrote.

"We believe Mr. Holleyman is an exceptional selection to fill the role of Deputy USTR."