The thing about Utah's version of the Child Protection Registry laws: it's so vague, just about anyone could be in violation. The registry, which works similarly to the no-call registry, gives parents and educators the ability to add children's email addresses (and eventually, screen names, IM identities, and telephone numbers) into a no-mail registry. Once the registries are established, email marketers will be required to check their lists against the registry before sending email which includes adult content. While Michigan's law only prohibits commercial speech of an adult nature, Utah's law prohibits all adults-only speech.

According to experts, Utah's law "could technically trap someone sending a dirty joke to an unmoderated mailing list with a registered minor on it." And penalties include fines as well as jail time - up to three years. While enforcement is a long way off, it's more likely that a private citizen sending out jokes, or even links to inappropriate web sites by accident (for instance, many mainstream ".org" web sites have terrifically offensive porn under the ".com" version of the name), could be caught than a commercial spammer, who is likely to be off-shore.

It would seem, then, that these new laws will cost the good guys money without having much teeth to go after the truly bad guys - more useless, costly legislation. Well, that's par for the course in spam regulation, isn't it?