Speaker 1: Time now for the Bloomberg Law Report. It's brought to
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Speaker 1: we are watching this morning with Joan Donnegher and the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Washington Newsroom. Congress will finish the month with forward
Speaker 1: momentum on tax reform after the Senate passed a budget
Speaker 1: resolution that will allow the process to pass with a
Speaker 1: simple majority. Next, it's the House is turned to act
Speaker 1: how Subcommittee will examine rules for online political ads, including
Speaker 1: a newly reopened federal Election Commission process that good strengthened
Speaker 1: disclaimer requirements, and the i r S will focus on
Speaker 1: reducing regulatory burdens and crafting rules to implement a new
Speaker 1: process for auditing partnerships in the coming year. Bloomberg Law
Speaker 1: everything you need, all on one legal research platform, include
Speaker 1: guidance analysis and Bloomberg Market Intelligence. Find out more at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg law dot com. Now another legal news Let's take
Speaker 1: a look at a new bipartisan plan in the Senate
Speaker 1: to put new requirements on political ads on social media.
Speaker 1: For more in the story, Bloomberg lawhos stun Grosso speaks
Speaker 1: with Bradley Smith, a professor at Capitol University Law School
Speaker 1: and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission. Professor, why
Speaker 1: have online political ads been exempt from the regulations that
Speaker 1: paid TV, radio and print ads have been subjected to
Speaker 1: for years? Well, this is a misconception. They're not actually
Speaker 1: exempt from those requirements. Rather, there hasn't always been in
Speaker 1: the Federal Ution Campaign Act and exemption where disclaimers are impractical,
Speaker 1: where the items are too small, for example, applies to
Speaker 1: bumper stickers, pens, buttons, all kinds of things like that,
Speaker 1: and for many uh Internet ads, for many small you know,
Speaker 1: twee eats and and Facebook type ads, it is simply
Speaker 1: not practically put that disclaimer there. So that is the
Speaker 1: basis on which these ads did not carry a disclaimer.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this Facebook did not get an
Speaker 1: exemption from the disclaimer requirement in even as Google did.
Speaker 1: So why hasn't Facebook been forced to comply or face
Speaker 1: some kind of penalties. Well, at the time, one of
Speaker 1: the questions has been whether or not this exemption for
Speaker 1: what's often called the small items exemption should apply to
Speaker 1: various Internet type advertising and digital platforms, and that has
Speaker 1: varied with the question of you know, what is the
Speaker 1: cost how practical is it to do? So what you
Speaker 1: had was a series of advisory opinion request where companies
Speaker 1: were asking, you know, in specific situations, do we need
Speaker 1: a disclaimer on this, that or the other. So there
Speaker 1: are different situations each time. In Google's case, the Commission
Speaker 1: voted that no disclaimer was necessary. In the Facebook case,
Speaker 1: the Commission ended up splitting three to three, which means
Speaker 1: essentially they didn't give Facebook and opinion one way or
Speaker 1: the other. But it's a practical matter. Since you need
Speaker 1: four commissioners to vote for an enforcement action, uh, and
Speaker 1: you have three commissioners say no, you don't need a disclaimer,
Speaker 1: it was logical for Facebook to assume that they weren't
Speaker 1: going to have to go through that putting a disclaimer
Speaker 1: on all those ads are turning away as where that
Speaker 1: was not in their estimation practical. And as Bradley Smith,
Speaker 1: the professor at Capital University Law School, speaking with the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's to doing Grosso, you can listen to Bloomberg Law
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Speaker 1: Attorneys will find exceptional legal research and business development tools
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