Stupid Media Watch: Another Whopper from Utah
What is it about editorial writers in Utah? Is it something in their coffee? Oh, wait. Forget we asked that.
The Salt Lake Tribune last week chimed in on the debate over Utah’s so-called child-protection do-not-e-mail registry with a house editorial headlined, “Not for a child’s eyes: Registry can protect children from adult e-mails.”
The Tribune writer either spent no time seriously considering the vast amount of well-reasoned arguments against Utah’s registry law, or, even worse, knew the critics’ arguments and ignored them. What’s more, the Tribune writer screwed up the facts.
After calling the misnamed child-protection registry a work in progress—message to the Tribune: The law was passed; it’s no longer a work in progress—the editorial offered the weakest criticism available in the debate over Utah’s no-e-mail law.
“Critics rightly say the registry is not as effective as it could be because few use it,” said the editorial. Because few use it? The only people who have criticized Utah’s cockamamie registry for its lack of use are the same zany Utah state legislators who helped pass the law creating the registry to begin with.
Six national trade and civil liberties groups—the E-mail Sender and Provider Coalition, the American Advertising Federation, the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the Association of National Advertisers, and civil liberties groups the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology—all filed court papers last month supporting the porn group Free Speech Coalition in its lawsuit trying to get Utah’s registry law overturned.
Does the Salt Lake Tribune’s editorial staff think these organizations risked lining up with a porn group because not enough people use the registry?
In another lame straw-man tactic, the editorial said the groups are against the registry on constitutional grounds, but dismissed the constitutional argument by saying the registry does not constitute prior restraint. Nowhere did it mention that the groups rightly contend the registry unconstitutionally interferes with interstate commerce.
Nor did the Tribune editorial mention that the Federal Trade Commission—not exactly marketing’s most vocal apologist—has said three times, count ‘em, three times, that do-not-e-mail registries are a terrible idea and could make people’s e-mail addresses more vulnerable to online predators.
To top it off, the Tribune editorial also mangled the facts: “Americans have a right to limit solicitation in their own homes,” the editorial said. “The federal do-not-call list and laws to allow blocking of junk mail have already established that advertisers don’t have unlimited freedom to bombard people.”
There is no law anywhere in America requiring companies to take people off their direct mail lists even if people request it. However, the Direct Marketing Association requires its members to comply with opt-out requests.
Moreover, the federal do-not-call list exempts calls to people with whom the caller has a business relationship. No such exemption exists with Utah’s no-e-mail registry. As a result, Utah’s registry requires marketers to pay an astronomical fee by market standards to scrub their customer files—or run the risk of getting sued because some kid signed up to receive mail while his parents declared his address off limits.
Irrefutable arguments against child no-e-mail registries are readily available to anyone who makes even a minimal amount of effort to find them. Those arguments, however, are extremely inconvenient for people who already have their minds made up.
