Politicians have taken advantage of crowd funding – raising large amounts of money through small donations from many people, mostly through social networks – in recent years, and Kickstarter has shown that artists and creators can do the same thing. Is that why it doesn’t seem like the biggest surprise that it’s beginning to look like the US Securities and Exchange Commission is considering letting start-ups and existing businesses do the same thing?

The Venturebeat blog reported this weekend that the SEC is considering changing decade-old limits on how companies can issue shares to the public, allowing for sites like Facebook and Twitter to be used to fundraise for corporations and businesses for the first time. Following a petition asking for such changes, signed by 150 organizations and individuals, SEC chairman Mary Schapiro told a lawmaker last week that the SEC was indeed discussing the matter with state regulators. Does this mean that Facebook is about to become even more full of messages I have to ignore?

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