Rick HasenVerified account

If campaign pays less than "usual and normal charge" for good/service, it's received an in-kind contribution. So long as FB applied same pricing model to Clinton/Trump, and model wasn't designed to benefit Trump, I don't think there's an in-kind contribution. 11 CFR 100.52(d)

Agree - but the issue does highlight how “normal & usual charge” is often less obvious for internet/social media stuff than it is for a stack of pizzas. Generally the question boils down to whether non-political customers can get the same bargain.

But “clickability” as a pricing term seems to me to pose bigger issues than whether there’s an inkind involved. Bot-driven price manipulation, for one, but also the way $$$-driven social media feeds & is fed by division & politics by flame war.

Tech marketing person here. I believe this pricing strategy is a left over from the early days of the Internet. Fewer users in the early days. Trying to draw eyeballs with everything including ads as clickable as possible ( interpretation was that more clicks =better content). 1/

Now that virtually the whole world is online, there is no need for this model. Especially for Google, which controls the search market. Problem is it’s the established business process across the board. In a more mature market, the flaws and vulnerabilities are now exploited. 2/