This is NOT the only weird or confusing thing that I’ve encountered while surveying state codes online, but since I’m relying upon google webcaches (and my own saving of the webpages in question) to save this info, I thought I’d also blog some screenshots as a back up.

I’m currently looking at the Utah state codes.  I started, as I usually do, by googling “[state] code”.  The first hit, which is the government website, had in the synopsis part “The Utah Code consists of laws of the state that are codified. This web version is an official publication of the Utah State Legislature. Printed versions of the Utah …”

I was pretty happy to see (a) an online official version and (b) the information so clearly spelled out without me having to hunt for it.  So I click on the link and

(You can click on the pictures to enlarge)

Okay, they moved.  No problem.  So I go to the new version and…there’s nothing about the officialness of the website.  Not at the bottom of the page, not in the Terms of Service, nada.   So what happened?  And when, exactly?

Here’s the before and after:

You’d think that something like ‘basic data collection about law’ wouldn’t have so many mysteries, but here we are.