Health insurance industry trade groups opposed to President Obama's health care reform bill are paying Facebook users fake money -- called "virtual currency" -- to send letters to Congress protesting the bill.
Here's how it's happening:
Facebook users play a social game, like "FarmVille" or "Friends For Sale." They get addicted to it. Eager to accelerate their progress inside the game, the gamers buy "virtual goods" such as a machine gun for "Mafia Wars." But these gamers don't buy these virtual goods with real money. They use virtual currency.
The gamers get virtual currency three ways:
- Winning it playing the games
- Paying for it with real money
- By accepting offers from third-parties -- usually companies like online movie rentals service Netflix -- who agree to give the gamer virtual currency so long as that gamer agrees to try a product or service. This is done through an "offers" provider -- a middleman that brings the companies like Netflix, the Facebook gamemakers, and the Facebook gamemaker's users together.
It's this third method that an anti-reform group called "Get Health Reform Right" is using to pay gamers virtual currency for their support.
Instead of asking the gamers to try a product the way Netflix would, "Get Health Reform Right" requires gamers to take a survey, which, upon completion, automatically sends the following email to their Congressional Rep:
"I am concerned a new government plan could cause me to lose the employer coverage I have today. More government bureaucracy will only create more problems, not solve the ones we have." ...
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