Senate Rules Chairman Charles Schumer and ranking member Robert Bennett offered colleagues some tips this week on how to use Internet-based new media since September 2008 changes allowing senators to move beyond their official Senate.gov sites to take advantage of innovations like the micro-blogging service Twitter and video sharing site YouTube. At that time, offices were instructed that "care needs to be taken not to violate Senate rules, regulations, standing orders and statutes governing Senate operations, including the prohibition on using Senate Internet resources for personal, promotional, commercial, or partisan political/campaign purposes."

Their Wednesday letter points out:

• Senate business must be separate from political/commercial/promotional activities.
• No official resources (office funds, staff time, equipment, space) may be used for the creation or maintenance of political, commercial, or promotional material on these sites.
• Members maintaining sites outside Senate.gov domain should ensure that public commentary, if permitted, is clearly distinguished from official content.
• Certain Web sites may collect data from users and members are cautioned against having an official presence on sites that may use such data for political or commercial activities.
• Sites with official Senate content may not require a fee or service charge for viewing.
• Certain sites, especially those that are not official sanctioned by the Senate Rules Committee, may place advertising on pages containing official member content. This can pose risks to members who may have no control over the content.
• At this time the only third-party Web site that has formally entered into an agreement to keep all promotional, commercial, or partisan advertising and commentary from member sponsored pages is YouTube.
• The Rules Committee is actively working with other sites to include them on the list of sites that agree to the Senate Internet regulation requirements.