Obama Campaign Site Gets a ".Gov"

Amanda Carpenter | November 07, 2008 7:44 AM

It appears Barack Obama's presidential campaign site got a slight makeover to become an official government website, which raises some questions about the email collection tool on the site.

Hot Air's Ed Morrissey noted Change.Gov, the President-elect's transition domain name, looks an awful lot like BarackObama.com, the site used to get emails and raise money for his campaign. This part of the site here contains a page to solicit stories and emails from citizens.

"Why does the government need to collect e-mails and addresses from citizens in order to share their stories with the President-Elect?" Morrissey asks. "What purpose does the OPE have for this information? Are they hoping to build a list to sell to political allies, or perhaps just to telemarketers to help pay off the deficit? Since this is hosted as a government site, I think they need to explain what official use they will make of this information."

When Bush-Cheney needed a transition site, they kept it private, according to CNN. In 2000, they spent $1.5 million to set up their own private site.

There have been previous stories about how Obama would like to use the Internet to revolutionize the White House, which I'll be going back through today. Maybe this is the first indication of that. Or, maybe it's something more. Stay tuned...