Utah Trying To Restrict Keyword Advertising ... Again 257
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 In 2007, Utah tried to regulate competitive keyword advertising; after a firestorm of protests, Utah repealed the law in 2008.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."
Trademark (Score:4, Informative)
A trademark is a sort of a definition of an invented word, administered today by the government.
Not exactly. The term "Windows" is trademarked, should Microsoft be the only entity to be able to purchase "windows?" of course not.
There is a real dividing line between corporation and state, and the irony here is that those who would argue that trademarks should be less powerful by definition argue that words should be auctioned, rather than licensed, and conversely, those who argue for strong government trademarks ultimately argue that the government should control more the meaning of words rather than the free market.
Neither of these arguments are correct.
Trademarks are names and logos under which businesses trade. The reason why they are protected is to protect the reputation of the institution that holds them. Believe it or not, there is "fair use" of trade marks. It is perfectly legal to use someone else's trademark if you using only enough of it to identify the business.
For instance. A car dealership named "Planet Subaru" has the trademark "Planet Subaru." As a dissatisfied customer, I can create a website named "www.planetsubarusucks.com." I can even use the trademarked name "Planet Subaru" on this site as long as there is no confusion that I am associated with them, only as much of the trademark as necessary to identify the business, and that I do not intend to trade on their mark.
It is perfectly legitimate for a ford dealer to buy "toyota" to get business from a competitor. Trademarks are not for censorship.
Uh, WordPerfect and Novell? (Score:2, Informative)
They're not exactly known for their progressive views on technology
You mean, like, when the mormons invented WordPerfect, one of the first great Word Processors, or pioneered networking with Novell, the first great networking company?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Ashton_(executive) [wikipedia.org]
http://www.mormonwiki.com/Ray_Noorda [mormonwiki.com]
Re:remove the Mormons tag (Score:4, Informative)
Those tags are user generated. Do you think it is also worthwhile to reply to every comment troll?
Re:remove the Mormons tag (Score:4, Informative)
What is bigoted about adding a "mormon" tag when over 80% of the Utah state legislature are members of the LDS church?
Re:remove the Mormons tag (Score:3, Informative)
*nudge nudge*
The "Priceless" ad campaign was mastercard...
Re:Utah? (Score:3, Informative)
They're not exactly known for their progressive views on technology.
Actually that's not true, either of the church or of the residents of Utah.
The church is very progressive (among churches) in its adoption of technology, both mass media for delivering its message to the world, and computer technology for its daily operations.
With regard to the state, there was a time a few years ago when Utah was second only to California in state GDP attributable to software development. I don't mean percentage of GDP, either, I mean dollars. With the demise of WordPerfect and decline of Novell, and the subsequent relocation of most of Novell's operations to Massachussetts, that has changed, but there is still a very significant high-tech industry in the state. There are thousands of small software companies that were started as Novell and WordPerfect died, and many of them are highly successful still. Utah is a rather good place to find employment as a programmer.
The Utah state government was one of the first to aggressively embrace e-government, and received many awards a few years ago for the quality and depth of the on-line services made available. State employees have recently shifted to a 4x10 work week, instead of 5x8, and that shift was made possible primarily by the fact that nearly all of residents' routine interaction with their government offices is now online.
For tech companies looking to set up, Utah has a highly-educated workforce (one of the effects of the large number of Mormons, since the church strongly encourages education) and is one of the nationwide leaders in broadband penetration. The UTOPIA project has delivered fiber to the home of large swaths of Salt Lake and Utah valleys, so there are many thousands (tens of thousands?) of homes with 10 Mbps symmetric network connections.
Personally, I'm looking to move OUT of Utah because it's getting too crowded for my taste, but your perception of the state as a technological backwater couldn't be further from the truth.
Re:remove the Mormons tag (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think that "Catholic" in that context means what you think it means. It is not a reference to the Roman Catholic Church: rather, it means "universal", as in "he has catholic tastes". The use of Catholic by itself to designate the Roman Catholic Church is shorthand. There are other churches that consider themselves "Catholic".
Re:remove the Mormons tag (Score:3, Informative)
"And I believe one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church"
catholic
adj.
1. Of broad or liberal scope; comprehensive
2. Including or concerning all humankind; universal
3. Catholic
a. Of or involving the Roman Catholic Church.
b. Of or relating to the universal Christian church.
c. Of or relating to the ancient undivided Christian church.
d. Of or relating to those churches that have claimed to be representatives of the ancient undivided church.