Utah Leaks Minors' E-Mail Addresses

Just how is it that any combination of the state of Utah and Internet regulation leads to such moronic ineptitude? For years, the state has passed one bad law after another to protect its citizenry against the scouge of the Web.

Last year, the state’s clueless lawmakers instituted the Child Protection Registry under the auspices of the Utah Division of Consumer Protection. The registry consists of the e-mail addresses of minors. Adult-oriented Web sites and e-mailers are supposed to screen their databases against the registry before mailing.

It should come as no surprise that the Consumer Protection bureau has divulged the e-mail addresses of several minors in the registry. It wasonly a matter of time. Perhaps the gaffe will induce Michigan, the other state with a similar registry, to reconsider the wisdom of maintaining a database that’s a virtual goldmine for spammers and pedophiles.

And to think a do-not-e-mail registry was lose to becoming part of the CAN-SPAM Act. I can still recall Sen. Chuck Schumer banging his fist on the lectern at the FTC hearings in D.C., intoning “military style encryption!”

Do-not-e-mail databases are not safe, they’re accidents waiting to happen. Except, of course, in Utah, where the accident already happened.