a) Maybe there is something obvious here I am missing, but why do political ads have to identify who paid for the ad? Suppose a bunch of individuals chip in to pay for a political ad, and the announcer says “paid for by the Friends of Alfred X. Newfish for President”. Could one actually find out who these people are?
b) Now on the flip side, when a non-political ad is run, how can you find out who is behind it? For one, who is behind these “phone monopoly” TV ads saying the “phonies” need to get out into the marketplace and compete? Maybe I miss their point, but WHAT phone monopolies still exist???
In many states, the local phone company still has a monopoly on basic residential service. They’re the only one who gets to run a line into your house that connects you with both the local and long-distance networks. This is valuable, because all the various information providers who will want to sell you services need the line into your house.
That monopoly is usually tied to something called “universal service.” In exchange for the monopoly, the phone company has to make service available to everyone in their service area.
In Missouri, there have been several attempts to open up telephone service to competition. The phone companies (and Missouri has a bunch of them) have said that if the monopoly is ended, so is universal service.
That’s not a big problem in the city or suburbs, where there are lots of companies who’d love to get into the market. But if you’re like my former girlfriend, who grew up on a farm 8 miles away from the nearest town, and 30 miles away from the nearest city, not being required to provide universal service would give the “phonies” an opportunity to either charge an incredible fee to continue to provide service, or walk away from that long stretch of cable enitrely. Her family farm can’t get cable, either, and no cell company wants to build a tower out there. The cost is too high for the amount of revenue the service would generate.
