While Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr., signed into law Utah's new mandate for the attorney general to list adult and other "harmful" websites and order Internet service providers to block them, a key supporter who joined him at the signing ceremony has raised conflict-of-interest questions.
The supporter is Citizens Against Pornography co-founder and ContentWatch chief executive Jack Sunderlage, who claims his business has not benefited since the new law was passed in the state legislature, but whose company may have sold its content-blocking software to at least one ISP after the legislative session ended.
The ISP in question, XMission, was said to have heard from a ContentWatch representative two weeks after that session finished, but XMission technology manager Grant Sperry told reporters the ISP already used its own filtering and never pursued any deal with ContentWatch, which offers partnerships to ISPs selling ContentWatch product to clients.
Sunderlage is said to have reviewed the law in draft before it was introduced in the legislature, as well as signing letters to the editor and joining Huntsman for the signing ceremony. And he denies he was trying to drum up business for ContentWatch while advocating strongly in public for the new law.
"I've seen the harmful effects of pornography," he told the Salt Lake Tribune. "I know how big the problem has become."
The law's chief author, state Rep. John Dougall (R-Highland), told the newspaper he sought Sunderlage's input after he began working on the original bill. "I don't see a conflict on that," he told the paper. "I was working on this before I ever ran into Jack."
The new Utah law is considered likely to face a constitutional challenge similar to that faced by a now-defunct Pennsylvania law that was similar to Utah's. The American Civil Liberties Union is considering litigation to thwart the law, with director Dani Eyer telling the Tribune that Sunderlage's position should be enough to alarm people about hidden agendas by those backing that particular law.
Sunderlage also said Utah ISPs won't have to buy software packages like ContentWatch's package if they comply with the new law. "I was arguing against what our company and our product does," he told the paper. "If the ISPs were doing their job[s], people would be less likely to buy our product."
ContentWatch is said to be preparing an educational DVD, "Pornography: The Great Lie," to sell at Deseret Books, owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Sunderlage's influence extends to Utah's information-technology industry as a whole. He chairs the Utah Information Technology Association, which named him chairman in March. The group said in appointing him that he "has played and will continue to play an integral role in the advancement of critical high-tech and community legislation in our state. We … will continue to benefit tremendously from the work and talent Jack Sunderlage brings."
Pennsylvania's Net blocking law was struck down in federal court last September, with a judge ruling the law – aimed at trying to curtail child porn – was ineffective at blocking child porn but too effective in blocking more than a million websites without any sexual content.
