Skip to Content

Free TUAW iPhone app -- try it now!
AOL Tech

Filed under: Internet, News

Utah bans keyword advertising on trademarked terms

Utah searchIn March, the state of Utah passed the Trademark Protection Act, designed to protect companies that register their trademarks in Utah.

Essentially, the law creates a database of trademarked terms, and prevents online advertisers from using those terms as keywords. In other words, if you're Mazda, you can't buy paid advertisements from Google that will show up when users search for Pontiac.

While some bloggers have declared that the bill shows an inherent misunderstanding of how the web works (every company that ever buys keyword advertising will have to check with Utah's state registry to make sure the term isn't trademarked in that state), it's amusing that the Utah lawmakers behind the bill have taken to the blogosphere to defend the law.

[via Slashdot]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio

Joystiq

TUAW

Daily Finance

Autoblog

Urlesque

Engadget

WoW

Switched.com

FanHouse