WhenU has more than 400 advertisers, and about 7 million consumers use it on a typical day. During cross-examination, Naider said that while WhenU cannot identify computer users' locations, it has told potential advertisers that the company can "geo-target" advertising campaigns.

The attorney representing the state, Blake D. Miller, told Fratto that WhenU can determine the locations of both computer users and Web site companies. "Your honor, the doom and gloom are simply overstated," he said.

Miller said spyware pop-up ads cost Salt Lake-based online closeout retailer Overstock.com $15 million in business last year.

He described spyware as "a parasite" that hijacks computers and slows their activity, often getting into computers through trickery, operating secretly and being difficult to uninstall.

Spyware can log all computer activity and transmit it. In a world troubled by identification theft, "it's a very, very real threat, and it's a very, very real concern," Miller said. Interrupting an online transaction to direct activities to a competing business "is the activity the Utah Legislature is trying to prohibit," he said.

The act "is not pointed at WhenU," Miller said. "If WhenU violates it, that's another issue."

WhenU has been the subject of a lawsuit in New York by Draper-based 1-800 Contacts Inc., which sells replacement contact lenses via the Internet. 1-800 Contacts has been trying to prohibit WhenU from placing Internet ads for 1-800 Contacts' competitors that appear over the 1-800 Contacts Web site.

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