Pay per click political ads

I considered posting this to my “how to blog” site, but frankly the interesting question of political ads came to mind. First the background, Freakonomics blog writer predicts the next wave of google or yahoo advertising will allow the searcher to be paid a micro amount just for clicking through.

I’ve written a (long) academic article showing how compensated calling could be easily incorporated into the current “do not call” regs — so that you could even setwhatever price you wanted to listen to telemarketing calls. (I’ve also publishedOpEds on the idea here and here.) Instead of making an all-or-nothing choice about whether to block all telemarketing calls, a lot of consumers would prefer to set an intermediate price and just block those calls that aren’t willing to pay their price.

He goes on in the quote above to suggest that this could also work for telemarketing and beyond. Already following the possible conundrum?

We’re used to thinking of Paypal and Google checkout as micro-payment services,
but they can also become micro-compensation services. If you watch a commercial on Google TV, Google could credit your account.

Now, parlay that thought forward to political campaigns. If a political campaign were to sign up for this service. Would they be breaking the law disallowing a politician from offering money in exchange for a vote? Is the law antiquated and need to be changed? Would you click more ads in return for a small payment?

Cross Posted at Porter County Politics