Utah’s A.G. Mark Shurtleff has been doing a spectacular job of protecting children from online filth.  From the Daily Herald:

Parents tired of filtering through adult advertisements and worried that explicit material could make it into their children’s hands, have an option to protect them.

Utah is one of two states that has an e-mail protection registry similar to the national do-not-call list, aimed at protecting children online. Utah’s Child Protection Registry has been available since 2005, but only protects about 150,000 e-mail addresses. Officials say it could be more.”People don’t really understand what it is, what it offers, what it’s for,” said Kevin Olsen, director of the state Division of Consumer Protection.

Parents can protect their children’s e-mail address, cell phone numbers, instant messaging IDs and fax numbers by logging on to the registry’s Web site at utahkidsregistry.com. The law that created the registry only restricts messages sent to children that contain adult material, such as pornography, gambling, tobacco or alcohol adds.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said the measure is meant to protect children from advertising for products they wouldn’t be able to buy legally. The registry was not designed to protect accounts that belong only to adults. However, adults can register their accounts if a child is likely to have access to it.

“The idea behind this is, if there’s material that’s hurtful to children, you don’t want to make it available to them,” Olsen said.

Utah company Unspam Technologies Inc, developed the technology to “scrub” advertisers’ lists of protected addresses and phone numbers.

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