Allegedly, comparative advertising is good for consumers, competition and free speech, or at least it is according to the Google Public Policy blog. Well, that was all a bunch of hooey for the legislators in Utah, who last year passed a law that prohibited search engines from allowing trademarks to be used as keywords for ads triggering and displaying.

All of the other states have nothing like it, so the uniqueness of this point of view must have had people feeling either really special or like overstepping some boundaries set straight by legislators all around. Fortunately for the search engines, before this law was enforced, the Utah legislature amended the bill last week and removed the provisions of the law which prohibited this kind of keyword advertising.

In short, had the law been passed, somebody wanting to sell Nike shoes wouldn't have been allowed to use the term "Nike" to trigger an ad for their store. That's stupid, sort of like a very sad version of Jeopardy, with ads being triggered based on other words, put together such as in "What's the sneaker brand based on a Greek name that is very popular with the young and had the Windy City's basketball team's famous No. 23 run ads for them mid 80's to mid 90's?" The words Nike, Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan or Jordan have been removed for being trademarks.

Google's take on the problem is categorical: "Consumers would have been prevented from seeing the kind of comparative ads that help them get the best deal possible. And businesses (including small businesses) would have been prevented from advertising products that they sell. […]The law also would have hurt free speech, with citizens being unable to run ads in protest of a certain company's business practices, for example." Moreover, it would have hurt Google's business, that's why the concerned citizen and company routine, but keep that under the QT, I don't think they know we know.