>
http://htdaw.blogsource.com/post.mhtml?post_id=442624>
> Monday, April 23, 2007 at 12:37 AM EDT
>
> Google vs. Utah: State takes flak for its attempts to police Web
>
> Law to curb keyword-triggered ads that made Google angry is the
> latest example
>
> By Linda Fantin and Glen Warchol
>
> The Salt Lake Tribune
>
> Salt Lake Tribune
>
> Article Last Updated:04/12/2007 01:49:30 PM MDT
>
> The Utah Legislature has earned a name for itself trying to police
> the electronic frontier, and it isn't that of Gunsmoke's Sheriff Matt
> Dillon, but his often incoherent deputy, Festus.
>
> "Utah has an unrivaled track record of enacting dumb,
> regressive, unproductive Internet laws," notes Eric Goldman, director
> of Santa Clara University's High Tech Law Institute in California.
>
> Adds XMission founder Pete Ashdown: ''I meet people all over the
> country who are just, like, shaking their heads and saying, 'What in
> the world are these people thinking?' ''
>
> One day after Google blasted the state's latest Internet
> crackdown as harmful to consumers and unconstitutional, Sen. John
> Valentine is thinking it might be time for meetin'.
>
> The Orem Republican says he is inviting representatives of
> Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, America Online and any other company
> rankled by Utah's Trademark Protection Act to share their views. The
> law, adopted unanimously despite warnings from state lawyers that
> there was a "high probability" it would be overturned in court,
> prohibits the competitive use of trademarked terms as triggers for
> keyword advertising.
>
> Valentine says there is something wrong when advertisers can pay
> search engines to "steal" the trademarked names of their competitors,
> and "Utah likes to protect businesses from predatory practices." The
> state, he adds, is on the forefront of technology, winning national
> awards for its legislative Web sites.
>
> Utah's solution to Internet trademark problems "might not work,"
> Valentine says, but he cheered the state's tenacity. "Sometimes you
> have to push a little bit to get a social consciousness to solve
> problems."
>
> Sen. Dan Eastman, a co-sponsor of the law, says it would give
> Utah "a neat little cottage industry" in registering trademarks. And
> the law allows the state to charge up to $250 in registration fees.
>
> "Utah could be the Delaware of trademark law," adds Matthew
> Prince, CEO of Unspam Technologies, noting companies will have to
> hire Utah lawyers to register their trademarks or sue competitors.
> "This law is an incredibly powerful tool for making Utah more
> business-friendly."
>
> It's also a tool that could net Prince, who helped write the
> trademark legislation, another state contract. After pushing
> lawmakers to create a child-protection registry in 2004, Unspam
> snagged a lucrative deal to manage the database. Likewise, Prince
> said he might bid on the trademark contract if the state decides to
> hire an outside company to handle that database.
>
> But mostly, Prince said, he likes the idea of helping Utah stay
> on the vanguard of technology, noting "the deadly sin motivating me
> is more likely to be pride than greed."
>
> As for Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s intentions: "This is truly
> watching out for the citizens of Utah and protected trademarks," said
> spokeswoman Lisa Roskelley. "It's not an embarrassment at all."
>
> That point is up for debate.
>
> "Legislators enact stupid laws all of the time, but some laws
> transcend mere stupidity and produce a single, three-letter response:
> WTF? And no legislature has passed more WTF Internet laws than
> Utah's," Santa Clara's Goldman wrote on his blog.
>
> In a phone interview, Goldman said the Utah Legislature reminds
> him of pornographers Playboy and Perfect 10, publishers that "freaked
> out" in the early 1990s and developed "extremely aggressive
> interpretations of copyright law" that rarely held up in court.
>
> "No one is saying Utah legislators are stupid. But there is a
> systemic problem with the legislative process [in Utah] that
> continually leads to bad outcomes," Goldman said.
>
> "It's like they are more interested in presenting themselves as
> being on the forefront of technology and seeing what happens, than
> passing good laws," adds XMission's Ashdown. "I am continually
> concerned our technological edge that has been so prevalent in the
> late '80s and '90s is being whittled away by these bad ideas."
>
> Corynne McSherry is an attorney with the San Francisco-based
> Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a collection of lawyers and
> activists committed to protecting "digital rights." The group is
> suing AT&T for collaborating with the National Security Agency and
> handing over the e-mail of their customers.
>
> McSherry says Utah's new law poses a serious problem for the
> state, noting the EFF probably would support a lawsuit. Keying off a
> trademark to give consumers information about competitive products is
> fair use and protected under federal trademark law, she says.
>
> "If it weren't, we wouldn't have the Pepsi Challenge, Apple
> wouldn't be able to make fun of Microsoft on national television
> every night, and Burger King wouldn't be able to put up a billboard
> next to a McDonald's," McSherry says.
>
> "If I were a Utah taxpayer, I would wonder why my representative
> wanted to vote for a bill that hurts me as a consumer and one the
> state's own counsel said is unconstitutional."
>
> Ragula Bhaskar, founder and chief executive of FatPipe Networks,
> a Salt Lake-based technology company, is a Utah taxpayer and he lauds
> the state's effort.
>
> "Bloggers will complain about free markets, but bloggers don't
> pay the bills," Bhaskar says. "People like me have to meet payroll
> and we have to protect our property."
>
>
lfantin@...
>
>
warchol@...
>
>
>
> Taming of the Net
>
>
> Utah has a habit of passing misguided Internet regulation, says Eric
> Goldman of Santa Clara University. His list:
>
> * Nation's first digital signature law, 1995. No company ever
> qualified and the state repealed the law "after 11 years of futility."
>
> * A child protection registry of 2004, requiring adult-oriented
> advertisers to submit their e-mail lists to be "scrubbed" of e-mail
> addresses to which minors have access.
>
> * The 2004 Spyware Control Act, struck down in federal courts,
> which would have outlawed software that tracks computer users'
> actions online and creates pop-up ads.
>
> * A 2005 law allowing Utah's porn czar to put porn Web sites off-
> limits. The state had to repeal parts of law, but litigation is
> ongoing.
>
>
>
>
http://origin.sltrib.com/technology/ci_5648312>
>
>
>
> My Original Writing blog:
http://itgotworse.blogsource.com
