Top 10 Cyberlaw Developments Of 2007
January 14, 2008
Eric Goldman of the High-Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University has posted his annual cyberlaw recap at InformIT. His #1 topic: "The Power to Tax is the Power to Destroy: Utah Tries to Tax Keyword Advertising Into Oblivion."
Goldman, who authors the Technology & Marketing Law Blog, writes:
"The state of Utah has an unrivaled record of Internet legislative incompetence, but they topped themselves in March when they passed the Utah Trademark Protection Act. This law set up a registry for trademarks and other identifiers and banned third party use of these registered marks as triggers for keyword advertising.
It's been hard to pin down exactly why Utah passed this law. Once the publicity spotlight shone on this law, everyone in Utah involved with the law started finger-pointing, making it difficult to do after-the-fact forensics. As far as I've been able to deduce, Utah hoped to get a little slice of the massive online advertising industry for itself--Utah could charge trademark owners to register their marks and charge online advertisers to check the registry, allowing Utah to tax online advertising even if none of the players (the advertisers, the keyword vendor and the trademark owner) had any relationship with Utah.
We may never know if this law would survive a legal challenge because Utah legislators started backpedaling almost immediately since their actions were publicized. In the end, this particular law is almost certain to fade away quietly--good news, to be sure, but a temporary win at best. The same drivers--greedy and incompetent legislators eyeing a big fat chunk of economic activity--almost ensure that other legislators will try again, making another battle inevitable unless preemptive federal legislation is passed."
Read the rest of his list here.
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