Utah Trying To Restrict Keyword Advertising ... Again

Eric Goldman writes "The Utah legislature has tried to restrict keyword advertising twice before, with disastrous results. In 2004, Utah tried to ban keyword advertising in adware; that law was declared unconstitutional. In 2007, Utah tried to regulate competitive keyword advertising; after a firestorm of protests, Utah repealed the law in 2008. Despite this track record, Utah is trying to regulate keyword advertising a third time. HB 450 would allow trademark owners to block competitors from displaying certain types of keyword ads. In practice, this law is just another attempt by the Utah legislature to enact a law that doesn't help consumers at all but does help trademark owners suppress their online competition."

Comments

Seems a sensible restriction

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems Utah merely wants to prevent advertisers from getting married to too many keywords.

Re:remove the Mormons tag

[Ironchew]

You have experienced the horror of keyword advertising!

Re:remove the Mormons tag

[RobotRunAmok]

Please remove the "Mormons" tag. Not all Mormons think that way. San Francisco has liberal Mormons, Texas has conservative Mormons, and there are libertarians dispersed throughout.

Oh, c'mon, Dude!! What's wrong with you? Geez... Christian-bashing is the last socially acceptable form of bigotry left to Americans, and now you want to take that away, too?

Utah?

[girlintraining]

This is a state where 58% of its inhabitants claim membership in a single religion, and the overwhelming majority of the legislature comes from this demographic. They're not exactly known for their progressive views on technology. Might I suggest we kindly totally and completely ignore this state? They're clearly out of touch with not just reality, but the rest of the country as well. At worst, Utah-nians just won't be able to go online, and golly gee what a shame that would be. -_- Now go ahead and mod me to hell for stating the obvious. Or can we at least re-classify this under "It's funny, laugh." ?

Re:remove the Mormons tag

[geobeck]

I think the difference boils down like this:

• Jews and Muslims consider Christ to be a prophet.
• Christians consider Christ to be The Prophet.
• Televangelists consider Christ to be The Profit.