The Federal Election Commission's rules require that all "public communications" include a disclaimer:

... a statement placed on a public communication that identifies the person(s) who paid for the communication and, where applicable, the person(s) who authorized the communication.

That's why, on television ads, you hear Barack Obama and John McCain say, "I approved this message."

But there's no such approval on the Facebook ads — or any other indication who paid for them. Internet politicking is exempt from many election laws. But there's one big exception: paid online advertising is treated the same as other forms of advertising. In a classic piece of regulatory doublespeak, the FEC says:

General public political advertising does not include Internet ads, except for communications placed for a fee on another person’s web site

Got that? No Internet advertising is covered, except for all Internet advertising.

There is one possible loophole MoveOn's Facebook ads could skirt under — a provision for "small items
upon which the disclaimer cannot be conveniently printed." Facebook's smallest ad format restricts the number of words an advertiser can use, arguably making it inconvenient to provide a disclaimer. But that defense seems specious; they could simply buy a larger-format ad, or link to a website which makes the identity of the advertiser clear.

Matt Hicks, a Facebook spokesman, told the Journal that the ads comply with Facebook's policies. It's true that Facebook allows political advertising. But Facebook's terms for advertisers have other rules which MoveOn may be violating:

• Ads must clearly state and represent the company, product, or brand that is being advertised.
• In both ad text and image, you must not include any content that may be deemed as infringing upon the rights of any third party, including copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity or other personal or proprietary right, or that is deceptive or fraudulent.
• Ads may not contain, facilitate or promote defamatory, libelous, slanderous and/or unlawful content.

In fairness to Facebook's rulemakers, this may be an issue above their pay grade. Other forms of online advertising, like Google's AdWords, could easily be used for similar campaigns. Text ads' targeted audience, short duration, and ease of alteration will make it hard for rival campaigns to track such activity. Without a disclosure, only Google or Facebook will know who's paying for a message. The FEC will have to rule on whether its disclaimer requirements apply to short text ads. But it's hard to see why they don't.

Greatest hits from the comments in MoveOn.org's Facebook group, protesting Facebook Beacon:

• "Oh my gosh, my cousins entire christmas shopping list this week was displayed on the [Facebook news] feed. thats so messed up. This has gotta stop!" — Tasha Valdez from Michigan
  
• "I bought some shoes and a dress on Overstock.com and was shocked to see it on my news feed the next time I logged onto facebook. The next day I had several people come up to me and comment on the things I bought. It was really creepy. I wonder what would have happened if I had bought underwear?" — Rachel Hundley
  
• "i found out what i was getting for Christmas from my sister...sadness." — Annie Kadala from north Carolina
  
• "I made a purchase yesterday for my wife for Christmas...When my wife logged onto Facebook, there was an entry in her news feed that I had bought a ring from Overstock. It had a link to the ring and everything. Christmas ruined." — Sean Lane from Massachusetts
  
• "I saw my gf bought an item i had been saying i wanted ... so now part of my christmas gift has been ruined. Facebook is ruining christmas!" — Matthew Helfgott
  

When a Wall Street Journal reporter asked if Facebook should ever tell your friends what you do on other sites, 1.5 percent chose always, 30.5 percent chose often, sometimes or rarely and 68 percent chose never. In an informal poll of my colleagues, 100 percent said only a Grinch would give away what someone bought as a Christmas present. Now, it's time for your opinion.

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

After News.com's Caroline McCarthy posted this evidence, Facebook responded to say it's listening to feedback and will soon make changes. Should be easy. From the looks of the screenshot, Facebook just needs to revert to an earlier version.

Click on the image to expand it.

Take poor Joe Shaw from UC-Davis for example. "I bought some 'enlargement' pills online," he writes in the group's forum. "The next thing you know, boom, it shows up on my news-feed for all my friends to see. The worst part about it: they were breast-enlargement pills!" What a pickle!

10. World Community Grid: When you're not using it, your computer can fight AIDS, muscular dystrophy, and cancer. After you download and install this program, the World Community Grid uses your computer's idle time to process data for any of several world-changing medical projects. WCG treats every computer as part of a giant processor: your computer downloads data, crunches it, and sends the info back to the Grid. If a crucial part of a medical cure is found using your computer, WCG will let you share the glory.

9. The Hunger Site: The Hunger Site and its siblings (the Breast Cancer, Child Health, Literacy, Rainforest, and Animal Rescue Sites) are simple to use: Click the button, and it donates the value of 1.1 cups of staple food (or saving 11.4 square feet of rainforest, or other granular donations). The sites are legit, and they raise their funds by hosting ads (many of which advertise other world-saving causes). You can click each site's button once per day.

8. MoveOn.org: Political decision shape the world, but the people shape political decisions. MoveOn.org needs signatures for online petitions. Their causes include protecting Internet freedom, stopping Iraqi troop escalation, and saving seniors from paying unfair Medicare penalties. At MoveOn, you can do more than sign a petition; you can join a rally or host an event.

7. Meetup: Get into offline activism through a meetup like Mother Jones in San Francisco, the Empowered Black Women's Network in NYC, or the Father's Rights Meetup in Missouri City.

6. Trickle Up: Donate money (even just $25) toward microloans to businesses in the developing world, like this program in Mali, the third-poorest country in the world, where Trickle Up helps entrepreneurs go from earning under 50 cents a day to $7 a day.

5. Prosper: This loan site helps groups of people support individuals or businesses and get a return for their investment. Help a family consolidate their credit or help someone start a small business.

4. Distributed Proofreading: Project Gutenberg puts public-domain books online for free. But between scanning the books and offering the text files, someone needs to proofread. That's what the volunteers at Distributed Proofreading do. All you need to do is offer a human eye to a scanned page and its computer-made text version. No grammar or spelling skills required; just make the new text match the original. Give the world something good to read.

3. CivicSpace: Take a cause of your own online, get online donors and volunteers, and manage a site without fussing over every technical detail. Or if you work with technical details, become a vendor or developer.

2. Your blog: Write an entry about the sites above and encourage others to take action. Or promote world-saving sites through Digg, Twitter, Reddit, Delicious, or a pay-it-forward site called Six Degrees.

1. The Mars Society: The world's shot. War, famine, all the misery on Earth. Forget it dude, let's go to Mars.