The Salt Lake Tribune published an opinion piece by Unspam chief executive Matthew Prince last weekend defending the indefensible fact that Utah is now picking up his company’s legal tab.
As is usually the case when Prince defends one of his seemingly endless schemes for screwing marketers, Sunday’s opinion piece was a bunch of intellectually dishonest hokum.
Prince wrote the article in answer to a story that appeared recently in the Tribune revealing that the state of Utah had begun picking up the tab for Unspam’s high-powered attorney in the legal battle between Utah, Unspam, and the Free Speech Coalition.
Under a Utah law and a similar statute in Michigan for which Prince lobbied and helped write, e-mailers are barred from sending e-mail containing anything it is illegal for minors to view or buy to any address registered on the two states’ so-called child protection do-not e-mail lists.
Marketers who want to include adult-themed messages or products in their e-mails—such as wine of the month club newsletters—must scrub their lists against registries Unspam maintains for $5 per thousand addresses screened in Utah, and $7 per thousand in Michigan. Unspam’s cut is $4 per thousand.
The Free Speech Coalition sued Utah and Unspam in November 2005, claiming the state’s do-not-e-mail registry is pre-empted by the federal Can-Spam Act, and that it unconstitutionally interferes with interstate commerce and the group’s members’ right to free speech.
The porn trade group reportedly named Unspam as a co-defendant to avoid having to make the same constitutional arguments twice if Utah loses and Unspam decides to sue as a result.
In explaining why the state began paying Unspam’s legal bills, Prince made the following jaw-dropping claim:
“After spending tens of thousands of dollars developing a constitutional defense for the state’s law, our legal funds were depleted and we were forced to withdraw from the case.”
Folks, this simply cannot be true. Unspam is a defendant in a lawsuit. If Prince “withdrew,” the court would be forced to render a default judgment on the Free Speech Coalition’s behalf, and the porn group could begin proceedings to seize Unspam’s assets.
Prince also repeats the contention that the Free Speech Coalition is arguing “in essence, that they have a constitutional right to send porn to Utah’s kids.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. This is an emotional argument that Prince trots out every time he tries to shut down the debate over the registries.
No one on the sender side of this battle has ever argued—in essence, or otherwise—that they want to send adult-themed e-mails to children. They are arguing that the registries place an unfair burden on legitimate marketers while not only doing nothing to protect children from inappropriate spam, but actually putting kids’ addresses in greater danger of being obtained by Internet predators.
And in an awe-inspiring act of dishonest intellectual jujitsu, Prince tries to position Unspam’s legal expenses as an act of charity.
“Did Unspam have any obligation to hire attorneys to help defend the state’s law? Absolutely not,” wrote Prince. “We did so because we believe in the program. We believe in it not only because it holds the opportunity to generate revenue for our small business, but also because it is the right thing to do.
“In other words, The Tribune’s article should much more accurately have been titled, ‘Utah startup company donates thousands to state’s legal defense.’”
Wow. The sheer audacity of that statement would be admirable if it weren’t so twisted.
Unspam isn’t defending the state’s law. It is defending itself. Or rather, it was defending itself and now the state is picking up the tab, resulting in a case of corporate welfare.
On a positive note, one can only hope this means Unspam hasn’t got the funds to pay for Prince to flit about the country lobbying for more state no-e-mail registry laws as he did last year presumably in the hopes of gaining more contracts.
But knowing Utah, it wouldn’t be all that surprising if the state began picking up Unspam’s “business development” expenses, as well.
* * *
On a related note, Tim Starr, a deliverability specialist who preferred his company not be named, sent in an e-mail offering a novel way to prevent Prince and Utah from coming up with any more wacky Internet laws:
“I hereby propose a vastly simpler law, called the ‘Give Matthew Prince a Dollar’ law,” Starr wrote.
“1) Everyone doing online commerce in the state of Utah would be required to give Matthew Prince one dollar per year, with revshare between Prince & Utah TBD; [to be determined]
“2) As a condition of passing this law, Prince would be banned from all future lobbying activities, or association with any company involved in lobbying
“3) As part of passing this law, Utah would be banned from any further legislation related to online commerce.
“That would be a bargain.”
I would like to propose an amendment: Make it the “Give Matthew Prince a Dollar and a Wedgie Act,” and I’m on board.
