A bill that slipped quietly through the Utah State Legislature has the state in trouble with the world's largest Internet search engine. Google is warning that the state's new law outlawing keyword-triggered advertising violates both free commerce and free speech rules. The law, sponsored by Sen. Dan Eastman, R-Bountiful, would make a company's name an "electronic trademark" for Internet purposes, and block the triggering of advertising on the same Web page from competitors.

Eastman said the law's intent was to protect businesses from having customers whisked away by advertisements that popped up when someone tried to find their company on an Internet search. He compared it to identity theft.

Google and other Internet companies use keyword-triggered advertising to present ads of potential interest to people based on what they type in a search. Some news Web sites also use keywords in articles to bring up related advertising.

This law is one of those bad ideas that should have been killed at birth. Not that anyone didn't try. The Legislature's own lawyers warned that the bill had a "high probability" of being deemed unconstitutional by the courts. Unfortunately, lawmakers chose to ignore the lawyers and put the state on a high-speed connection for litigation.

The bill is constitutionally flawed. Advertising enjoys a great deal of free-speech protection, especially on the Internet, which gets a constitutional analysis much like print. Utah's law is essentially a state-imposed gag on Google and other services, censoring attempts to deliver advertising because a Utah business has declared that words used in the search are part of its trademark.

The law infringes on interstate commerce by interfering with an out-of-state company's right to advertise legal products in Utah. Interstate commerce is strictly the province of the federal government, not local legislators seeking to protect a constituent's business from competition.

The law presumes that someone looking for a particular business online is going to be lured away because Google displayed a topically related advertisement on the search page. Utahns may be many things, but most of them are not that stupid. If they are looking for a particular company, Web surfers are going to ignore competitor's advertisements, while if they are just merely searching for companies that make a particular product, they may welcome the additional information.

The point is that the computer user, not the bureaucrats, should decide.

There are adequate means in place for Web surfers to protect themselves from unwanted advertisements that do not trample constitutional rights. Utah computer users can already cope with Internet advertising. They don't need the Legislature's misguided help.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A5.

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