Utah Bans Keyword Advertising

Eric Goldman writes "Last month, Utah passed a law banning keyword advertising. Rep. Dan Eastman, the Utah legislator who sponsored the law, believes competitive keyword advertising is the equivalent of corporate identity theft, causing searchers to be (in his words) 'carjacked' and 'shanghaied' by advertisers. He also takes a swipe at the EFF, dismissing its critique of the law as 'criticism from the fringes.'"

Comments

Great...

[ZxCv]

Because passing a stupid law like this in Utah will actually have any real effect on the use of keyword advertising.

The only real effect it will have is making things harder for advertising companies, by forcing them to filter out the dolts in Utah before serving up an ad.

This is nothing more than some 2-bit politician trying to make a name for himself, and won't do any good whatsoever for any of the citizens that were responsible for putting his sorry ass in office in the first place.

Three little words.

[TJ_Phazerhacki]

Utah. Politics. Internet.

ZZZzzzzz......

Re:Damn Straight!

[jlindy]

Seriously, wtf is wrong with this picture? Umm...Utah?

My two explanations

[michaelmalak]

This is so obviously wrong the reasons it is wrong may not be obvious, so here is my attempt at three concise explanations:

1. Old-fashioned thinking says that Google is the new newspaper. This is wrong. It's the new concierge. If you go to a hotel and ask the concierge for reservations to Morton's and he says, "ah, but here is a better steakhouse that my buddy runs" -- can you imagine that being illegal?
2. Old-fashioned thinking says that the world is hierarchical. That's just post-Aristotle Western thinking. According to this new Utah law, if you want to find competitors to Jiffy Lube, you must first identify the superclass or super superclass (species and genus, respectively, in Aristotalean terms) and type that into the search engine. Typing in a specimen (i.e. Jiffy Lube) to find siblings is called associative lookup in computer science parlance. I'm wondering when the law is coming that bans content addressable memory.
3. Old-fashioned thinking says that there is a bright line between paid and unpaid search engine placement. Even if an advertiser is not paying for Google AdWords, you know they're paying for search engine optimization -- just not directly to Google. Will SEO be the next thing made illegal, since it is a form of advertising that has no explicit "this message paid for by..." message? And if not, do we prefer SEO (i.e. Google spam pages) to AdWords?

Re:Google can cope easily

[tuxicle]

Not fair comparing the two:

Google China: Firewall for 1.2e9 people
Google Utah: Free adblock for about 5 people?

Re:Follow the money to here...

[Technician]

Which campaign donor paid for this, or which Mormon edict is behind it? It's obviously one or the other.

I think you might be onto something here.. It looks like follow the money. Now if I can find some data on the new registery mentioned in the article and who profits...

Snipped from the article....

Owners of eligible words can register the terms in a new registry by paying a nominal fee.

Re:Damn Straight!

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you dismiss these laws, read these posts discussing the problem and the legality:

http://senatesite.com/blog/2007/04/guest-blog-utah -trademark-protection.html
http://senatesite.com/blog/2007/04/constitutionali ty-of-trademark.html

This issue isn't as simple as the Slashdot hordes may make it seem.

No, you miss the point

[kripkenstein]

Because God knows that if I'm searching for "New Cars" I damn sure don't want to see any advertisements about car dealerships, finance companies, or anythign like that.

No, that isn't the issue at all. You have apparently not bothered to read TFA (I know, I must be new here). Keyword advertising is 100% legal after this bill; anyone and everyone can advertise using keywords like "New Cars". No problem there.

The issue the Utah legislators are against is (the following example is fictitious) Sony buying keyword advertisements for the "XBOX" keyword - in hopes of getting them to buy PS3s instead. The idea behind the law is that, in this example, Microsoft own the XBOX trademark, and by Sony buying ads for "XBOX", they are 'benefiting from another person's trademark'. Or something like that. To be more specific, it might be the case the Sony pay more, and people typing "XBOX" see ads for Sony, and not Microsoft. The legislators see that as "hijacking a trademark".

Now, this is an interesting issue. In essence, this is a case of one entity making use of anothers' trademark for profit. Which does seem a little 'off', at least if you value trademarks (I do, and I disvalue copyright and patents, at least in their current incarnation in the US). However, as pointed out in the past, the real issue isn't what is 'fair', but what is possible. Implementing this law is a lesson in futility. In other words, Utah don't get it. But they are not the complete morons implied by most people's reaction to the Slashdot title for this story.

Re:Damn Straight!

[baeksu]

Thank you for the links, those were an interesting read.

I still think that these legislation is not wise.

First, I do not think it is the job of the state to protect the success or effectiveness of a private entity's pr-campaign.

Second, this type of legislation would put a burden on the sellers of advertisement space. Would they have to verify the legal owner of each possible trademark that a keyword could refer to?

The link uses the example 'pontiac', and how it should point to General Motors website. What about 'pontac', 'pontiac dealership' or 'pontiac repairs'? It quickly becomes very difficult to draw the line on where the rights of a trademark owner end, and free competition for eyeballs begins.