Utah And Search Pirates?

Was reading an article from Media Post this afternoon about a new (crack pot) law that was passed in Utah that prevents companies from bidding on competitors' brand terms.

A quote from the article...

"In some cases people invest millions on their trademark, only to have their customers' on-line word searches shanghaied by a pirate who bought off the search engines," wrote Utah Senator Dan Eastman on his Web site. "In my mind this amounts to little more than a creative new kind of identity theft."

My question is, "exactly how is this going to work?" Does it apply to companies that are based in Utah? Or does it apply to any company in the whole universe?

I can tell you right now, I bid on competitor brand terms. And I have no plan to stop. In fact, here's an email I got from a competitor two months ago when their search manager noticed I had just begun bidding on their brand terms:

I work for XXXXXXXXX handling our search engine marketing campaigns. We recently starting buying your brand terms because we noticed you were purchasing ours. I'd like to speak to you about reaching a mutual agreement. Please feel free to email me or call me at (XXX)XXX-XXXX.

Basically, this competitor was pissed because I was driving up the cost of her brand terms. She said that if I stopped bidding on her terms, she would stop bidding on mine. And that was complete "hoo-haw." Because given my company's name and the industry, there is no way she could ever NOT bid on my brand terms.

Additionally, after doing some research, I calculated that I was actually making a nice return on her company's brand terms. So if I'm bringing in more traffic, and making money; there's no way I'm going to STOP bidding on her brand terms.

I never emailed her back after an initial exchange. And I continue to plunder her brand terms. (As she does mine.)

So you know what I say?

I say screw her. And screw Utah.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!


ADDITION TO THIS POST:

PPC Ninja said that it should be pointed out that by bidding on your competitors' terms is good for the User experience.

PPC Ninja: "Coke and Pepsi have always mentioned each other in ads about taste tests. Direct comparison is always a fundimental part of marketing. But even more so in search."

He has an excellent point. If only companies are allowed to bid on their brand terms, it's not really useful to the User. Search is about choice. Even paid search. You should have options for paid ads like you do for organic listings.

So again, screw Utah!