The Federal Election Commission (FEC) today approved a New Jersey technology firm's petition to waive disclosure rules for political ads delivered via SMS -- or "short messaging service." SMS is featured on a wide range of wireless devices, from digital mobile phones to Blackberries to two-way pagers. Target Wireless of Fort Lee, N.J., joined by advertising industry groups and a Republican campaign committee, argued that current campaign disclosure rules would require political advertisers to use up too much of the limited amount of text -- 160 characters total -- available for individual SMS messages. Disclosure exemptions have long been in place for advertising media that are limited to small numbers of text characters, such as bumper stickers, buttons, pens and pencils, skywriting, balloons and water towers.

But Commissioner Danny Lee McDonald, the lone "no" vote in the FEC's 4-1 decision in favor of the SMS petition, said comparing cell phones to bumper stickers and water towers was something of a stretch, since wireless devices are a far more personal and private medium for most consumers. "If you take a bumper sticker or button, those are things that are initiated by citizens (who wear them)," McDonald said. "With cell phones, the flow is the other way." At least one campaign disclosure advocate expressed concerns that an exemption assumes that all political messages delivered over SMS will be positive. "It's hard enough with the ads already out there to figure out who's really paying for what, and if you drop (the disclosure requirement), I see mischief all over the place," said David Farber, a professor of computer science and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania.

"If we are wrong in our judgment and it's horribly abused, we can revisit this," said FEC Vice Chairman Karl J. Sandstrom, seeking to downplay concerns about the SMS waiver. The idea that a government regulation "should trump the medium to get out message, means that the government requirement trumps the message," said Sandstrom, who was sitting in for FEC Chairman David M. Mason

The advisory opinion adopted by the FEC today essentially exempts political ads from containing basic "paid for by" notices that otherwise would take up much of the space available in a single SMS message. Commissioners discussed whether political advertisers should be urged or required to include a phone number or Web site address at the end of the SMS message telling recipients where they can go to learn more about the ad's sponsor, but the commission did not act formally on that proposal.

The question remains whether there's a viable market for delivering campaign ads via SMS in the U.S.

SMS is hugely popular in other parts of the world but has been slow to catch on in the states. According to the Boston-based consulting firm Yankee Group, there were roughly 131 million cell phone subscribers in the United States by the end of 2001. And while a third of those users had SMS-enabled phones, only about 4.3 million actually used the service.

By contrast, nearly all of the 293 million wireless users in Europe had two-way SMS capable devices by the end of last year, and roughly 175 million regularly used the service, Yankee analysts found.

Target Wireless President Craig Krueger declined to name any potential clients for his company's service, but said he has already received inquiries from potential 2004 presidential candidates. His petition was supported by the Republican National Senatorial Committee, the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, the American Association of Advertising Agencies and the Association of National Advertisers.

Krueger hopes to match content providers with advertisers, in effect selling paid political advertising on mainstream SMS content like news, financial data and sports scores. Kreuger said also his company hopes to begin selling political ads for delivery to customers who have "opted-in," or asked to receive the content and targeted ads.

Phil Noble, founder of PoliticsOnline.com and a leading cheerleader for e-politics, said candidates' interest in SMS is likely to grow in the 2002 campaign season, albeit on a small scale.

"All politics is about front-runners and underdogs," Noble said. "Front-runners ask, 'What did we do last time, and can we do it again?' Underdogs look for what is new and different and try to find an edge."

New Media Communications, the company that built the Bush 2000 general election Web site and used SMS in two state Senate races in 2000, has plans to run get-out-the-vote campaigns over SMS in the days leading up to this year's election, according to company CEO Mike Connell.

"Campaigns go through considerable time and expense to win hearts and minds of people, and once you've gone through all that you've still got to make sure they turn out on Election Day," Connell said.

Other campaign pros aren't ready to jump on the SMS bandwagon.

Ben Green, co-founder of Crossroad Strategies and former director of Internet operations for the Gore 2000 president campaign, said he would advise clients against using the technology in this year's election.

"Campaigns are typically on a tight budget and have to spend their dollars wisely," Green said. "The fact is that the political Internet industry landscape is littered with the wreckage of companies that think they've found the killer ap, only to fall flat on their faces."

The article appeared originally in the Washington Post