The Salt Lake Tribune Business Digest Column.

The Salt Lake Tribune (Salt Lake City, UT) March 19, 2004 Mar. 19–UTAH CONTACT LENS COMPANY FIGHTING INVASIVE RIVALS: 1-800 Contacts continued its fight Thursday against invasive competitors’ “pop-up” advertisements, filing suit against a Canadian online lens company.

Thursday’s complaint is similar to a suit filed in October 2002 in New York federal court against WhenU, a New York-based adware company. This past January, a judge in that case granted an injunction against WhenU.

Adware, also known as spyware, can be attached to free programs downloaded from the Internet. Without the computer user’s knowledge, it can track user activity and transmit that information in the background to a third party. Joe Zeidner, 1-800 Contacts’ general counsel, said the latest suit was part of a consistent campaign “seeking an end to the hijacking of our Web site.” In addition to an injunction halting the pop-ups, the suit seeks unspecified damages for customers inappropriately taken by Coastal Contacts. in our site 1800contacts coupon code

Numbers listed on the Web site for Coastal Contacts — which claims offices in Blaine, Wash., and White Plains, N.Y., as well as Vancouver — seemed to be down Thursday and could not be completed.

–Bob Mims COLORADO SKIING GIVEN A LIFT: Boosted primarily by destination visitors, Colorado ski industry officials reported a moderate increase in lift-ticket sales during January and February.

Colorado resorts had 4,982,562 skier visits during the two-month period, a 3.5 percent increase over the same period a year earlier and 4.8 percent more than the five-year average for January and February. Driving the overall increase was a 6 percent jump in the number of out-of-state visitors.

For the season, Colorado resorts have logged 7.65 million visitors, down 1.2 percent from the winter of 2002-03, when Colorado benefited from considerable early-season snow. This year’s total through Feb. 29 is 8 percent above the five-year average. this web site 1800contacts coupon code

Utah resorts do not disclose skier day totals until the season is over.

–Mike Gorrell UTAH FIRM LOOKS INTO FUTURE: Want a peek at what Earth will be like five, 100 or even 200 million years from now? Evans & Sutherland says its new “The Future Is Wild” takes a knowledgeable stab at it.

The Salt Lake City-based computer graphics company has kicked off the show with its patented all-dome video technology this week at the StarRider Theater in Chicago’s Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum.

No word on when the program might make it to Salt Lake City, but the program is available to Digistar 3 customers for licensing, E&S officials say.

–Bob Mims