Revolution Messaging, a Washington, DC, mobile strategy firm, is challenging the FEC on their decision and says the action will cost campaigns money, while also limiting the use of mobile ads on handheld devices.
"The Democratic FEC commissioners have no sense of technology available to today's political campaigns," said Keegan Goudiss, Revolution Messaging's partner and head of digital advertising. "They are employing 20th century logic to 21st century campaigns."
According to Revolution Messaging, they were misled by the FEC commissioners after an initial hearing, where they (FEC) said there would be a compromise with a shorter disclaimer. While Republican commissioners felt there was not a need for a disclaimer and would settle on an alternative, the company said Democratic commissioners changed their minds and rejected that approach.
The exemptions from disclaimers offered by the FEC, which included bumper stickers, buttons, pens, water towers, skywriting and other objects, also caused the Revolution Messaging officials to be surprised that handheld devices were viewed differently. In addition, company officials believe the FEC has struggled with issues related to digital technology.
But Revolution Messaging was deemed critical in the FEC's decision to allow donations via SMS and also challenged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to define text message regulations in order to halt political test message spam.
Because of the FEC's ruling, Revolution Messaging officials believe the ruling does nothing to deter bad players in the political arena and will only penalize the good players with higher costs in getting their message across.
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