Top Web Businesses Oppose Utah Spyware Law

theodp writes "According to MediaPost.com: 'Some of the Web's leading content and technology providers have taken action to lobby against Utah's controversial Spyware Control Act, which is awaiting the governor's signature. Web publishers and businesses including AOL, Amazon, Cnet, eBay, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! signed a letter to the bill's sponsors arguing that the bill could create serious repercussions for the entire online community. The parties to the letter warned that the bill could interfere with computer security and would also impair the delivery of local, targeted ads'."

Comments

Re:Politicians and technology, again.

[bludstone]

"they let one company write the bill to suit themselves."

People dont realize how epidemic this is in American politics. The politicians often don't even write the laws, they _literally_ allow companies to write the laws, and simply sign what they are given into law.

It even got to the point where laws are copyrighted, and one had to pay hundreds of dollars simply for a copy of the law. Someone posted a copy of the law online and was met with copyright complaints.

see here. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?n avby=search&case=/data2/circs/5th/9940632cv0.h tml

of course, they eventually found in Veeck's favor, http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/99/99-406 32-cv2.htm but it still must be noted.

heres a slashdot article on it:
http://slashdot.org/yro/01/05/13/1921223.shtm l

I could also post a flurry of links regarding American fore-father's worries about the growing strength of "company" and to watch out for its influence on the government, but that would be preaching to the choir.