Blogs, Campaigns & Regulatory Arbitrage

I haven't managed to get anyone mad at me this week, so let me toss some fuel out there and let's see what burns. I'm following with some interest the FEC "What do we do about the political Internet" set of issues.

So let me ask a dumb-a**s question.

If bloggers (or other website owners) are acting as auxiliaries to campaigns, or are heavily involved in raising significant funds for campaigns, why shouldn't there be some requirements for disclosure, and why shouldn't the funds raised fit under the same rules as any other money raised for a campaign?

In some ways, this strikes me as a kind of Skype issue; on one hand we have a genuinely interesting technology -in this case mixture of social and technical engineering. It has genuine value, which should be preserved. On the other we have a regulatory arbitrage based on new technology and the simple fact that no one who wrote the old regulations knew enough to map the existing regulations to the technical means to evade them.

I'll go in the kitchen and look for some matches now...

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