Remember this hot topic from a few weeks ago? Well, forget about it, at least for now.

Online Politicking Receives Temporary Reprieve

Political bloggers would continue to be exempt from most campaign finance laws, according to highly anticipated rules that federal regulators released Wednesday.

The Federal Election Commission also proposed that online-only news outlets and that even individual bloggers should be treated as legitimate journalists and immune from laws that could count their political endorsements as campaign contributions.

The 47-page outline of proposed rules (click here for PDF file) takes a cautious approach to the explosive question of how Web sites and e-mail should be regulated, with the FEC saying throughout that its conclusions are only tentative ones and inviting public comment. The comment process is expected to be approved by the FEC at its meeting Thursday.

I haven’t read the proposed rules yet, so I’ll hold any further comment until I do. Nonetheless, don’t let this issue fall too far off your radar. If there isn’t a “gotcha” in this new proposal, you can bet that the (bad) regulations in the original proposal will come up again, soon.