GOP

The GOP Toolbar – Raising Cash for the Republican Party the Painless Way

July 26, 2008 /
GOP-Toolbar

Flap received an e-mail earlier in the week from the Republican National Committee about the GOP toolbar but like every come-on blew it off.

But, Marc Ambinder had a post today and linked the Wall Street Journal piece that explains it in detail – a painless way to give to the GOP with a click of the mouse and at no cost to the browser user.

Barack Obama may have John McCain beat when it comes to online fund-raising and Facebook friends (click here and here), but Republicans have an edge in one form of Internet campaigning – and it’s growing 2.3 cents at a time.

When supporters install a GOP toolbar for their Web browser, the Republican National Committee collects a few pennies every time they use the Yahoo-based search function. The gadget was designed by http://www.freecause.com/ FreeCause Inc. , which gets the micro-payments from Yahoo and passes them to the RNC, after collecting its commission. Users can track the total in their digital change jar, which tops out at the Federal Election Commission’s $28,500 limit. That would amount to more than 1.2 million searches. Users can also do their online shopping through the browser tool, which directs 1% to 8% of their spending to the RNC.

FreeCause co-founder Casey Adkisson says the company has worked mainly with charitable causes like the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer organization and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

When McCain’s former chief strategist John Weaver heard about the new technology, his firm, The Network Companies LLC, bought the rights to the technology in the political marketplace. Beyond the fund-raising potential, Weaver sees the future of political communications and organizing in Web tools like this one.

“We’re all looking for a way to get around the media filters, to go directly to the consumer,” Weaver said. “The browser is the new desktop. Now we’ve got a communications tool in front of the user for six to ten hours every day. It will have a revolutionary impact.”

Flap has installed the GOP toolbar and will be using it to search while contributing to the GOP. A novel approach.

Check it out here.

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2 Comments

  • none

    July 28, 2008 at 1:54 pm

    The the GOP.com toolbar created by Yahoo and FreeCause appears to contain a type of spyware. Specifically, the toolbar hijacks the browser’s address bar such that any term entered into the address bar other than a URL, is surreptitiously routed through the GOP search engine.

    The toolbar edits the browser’s config file in Firefox without asking for permission (which no one would rightly give). It employs a different tactic with a similar result in IE.

    More troubling is the fact that the address bar continues to be hijacked even after the toolbar is uninstalled!

    The same hijack exist with other toolbars created by Yahoo and FreeCause:

    – Susan G. Komen Foundatio toolbar
    – Ron Paul toolbar
    – AnySoldier.com toolbar
    – NRA – ILA toolbar
    – Denver Post toolbar
    – Gaia Online toolbar
    – Special Operations Warrior Foundation toolbar
    – Autism Awareness toolbar

    This is highly unethical, and if not illegal, it certainly should be.