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N.Y. SHADOW MONEY RULES CHANGE: Are voters ready for a change in campaign finance rules?

New York State may be testing the waters. Recently, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) proposed new regulations that would require 501(c)(4) nonprofits — named for a section of the IRS Tax Code — to disclose their budgets and the donors behind their millions of dollars if they spend at least $10,000 on politics in the state.

Currently, the “social welfare” groups do not have to disclose the sources of their funding, even if they are politically active. They can maintain this status with the IRS as long as less than 50 percent of their money is spent on politics.

Under Schneiderman’s proposal, nonprofits that raise at least $25,000 from New York donors would be subject to the new regulations as well. According to the Albany Times-Union, Schneiderman also opened investigations on some nonprofits — including American Action Network, American Bridge 21st Century and Crossroads GPS — to see if their activities in his state would require them to register with his office, which already regulates some groups’ fundraising.

In the 2012 election cycle, outside spending groups dropped $1.3 billion with Crossroads GPS and its super PAC affiliate, American Crossroads, accounting for about $175 million. Nondisclosing groups, most of them 501(c)(4)s, spent more than $300 million of the total, including the conservative American Action Network, which spent about $11.7 million, and liberal-leaning American Bridge 21st Century, which laid out $339,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

INSTA-CHANGE: Outraging many social media users, the photo-sharing site Instagram announced it will have a new privacy policy effective Jan. 16 that will allow the company — which was recently purchased by Facebook — to distribute any photos users publish.

“To be clear: it is not our intention to sell your photos,”‘ co-founded of Instagram Kevin Systrome wrote in a statement. “We are working on updated language in the terms to make sure this is clear.”

The policy asserts that organizations can pay Instagram for user images without the app user’s permission, notification or compensation. The images could be used for advertising, and unless an account is deleted before the policy takes effect, there is no opt-out option. It also says information collected can be shared with Facebook, which has a similar policy.

Through the first three quarters of 2012, Facebook has spent about $2.6 million lobbying issues such as telecommunications; computers and information technology; media information and publishing; and copyright, patent and trademark.

Facebook has lobbied on 36 bills this year, many of them relating to online privacy and protection. Although lobbying disclosure reports do not require filers to say where they stand on any given bill, research shows Facebook lobbied most on the Commercial Privacy Bill of Rights Act, followed by the Personal Data Privacy and Security Act.



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