The Federal Election Commission was deadlocked Thursday on whether to require the valuation and disclosure of unpaid political activism on the Internet to the federal government.
The 3-3 party line vote came in response to a request for an advisory opinion from the Internet Association, a trade group representing 36 tech companies, on whether it could set up an online chat room to help candidates interact with voters and raise money online.
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“They’ve created an online space to hold a fundraising event,” Democratic Commissioner Ellen Weintraub said. “It’s not cost-free. If it were, then we wouldn’t have any costs we had to worry about as a potential in-kind contribution. But just as if you donated physical space, that would be considered an in-kind contribution. It’s not banned. But it just means that you have to account as an in-kind contribution for the space.”
In-kind contributions are any item given to a campaign other than cash, and are subject to federal campaign finance disclosure laws.
Weintraub added that she did not have a particular prescription for how to value space on the Internet, but that regulators should figure it out. “There’s a variety of ways [for] how to value and come up with the fair-market value of what that space is. You don’t have to, I think, take the entire cost that went into building the platform, just like you wouldn’t have to take the entire cost of building a building, just because you donated a room for a fundraising purpose… But I do think it’s a thing of value that is being provided to the candidate.”
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Republican Commissioner Lee Goodman pointed out that Democrats were trying to apply campaign finance laws to activity that didn’t involve finances. “That’s what is so unique about the Internet. It takes old-world physical events and reduces them to bits and bytes of information being disseminated not at any cost, but for free. The only costs associated … are the back-office production costs.”
The opinion being sought by the association, which contains companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter, would have been nonbinding, but would provide guidance on whether the FEC would seek to impose sanctions on the group for moving forward with the plan.
The commission split on the issue 3-3, with Democrats voting in favor of regulating and Republicans voting against, which meant no opinion was issued.
