This is a head scratcher to me - in Florida, there's a proposal to make information on lawyer websites harder to find:

Now, some members of the Board of Governors want to make websites subject to Rule 4-7.2. As reported in The Florida Bar News, “Rule 4-7.2 bars the use of testimonials, language describing the quality of a lawyer or law firm’s services, references to past successes, or language promising results, among others.” However, this information is available to legal consumers when they ask for it.

Chobee Ebbets, chair of the special Bar committee proposing these changes, said lawyers could “still post such information, but it would have to be in a restricted area of their Web sites accessed only by the viewer taking an affirmative action indicating he or she desired further information.” Florida Bar News, January 1, 2007.

Hmm. I dislike the "ambulance chaser" ads on TV as much as the next guy, but websites are not like TV or radio. If I head to a legal site (blog or otherwise), I'm actively seeking information - what benefit does it do me, as an end consumer, to make it harder for me to find what I'm actually looking for? By putting that stuff behind a password wall (or the equivalent), it will disappear from search engines, which will only make my life harder.

I'm not sure what "problem" this is supposed to solve, but it seems awfully silly to me.

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