DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

A who's who of Internet companies sent a letter detailing "strong opposition" to a New York state bill that would limit their ability to collect information for targeted advertising.

"(The bill) is unnecessary, most likely unconstitutional, and would have profound implications for the future of Internet advertising and the availability of free content on the Internet," wrote Jim Halpert, a lawyer for the companies, in a letter to Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, the Westchester County Democrat sponsoring the bill.

Assemblyman Brodsky was not immediately available to comment on the letter.

The coalition, which includes bitter rivals Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) and Google Inc. (GOOG), said regulation would impose "detailed notice requirements" on Web sites that collect user information for use in targeting advertisements. The additional requirements are unnecessary, the coalition claims, because of self- regulation already imposed by the industry itself, and any new rules would soon be outdated.

The company's also said that the bill is unconstitutional because states can't regulate Internet commerce.

"It is simply not feasible to comply with Internet advertising regulations that vary from state-to-state," wrote Halpert. "Time after time, state laws that have attempted to impose this sort of broad Internet regulation have been struck down by the courts, doing nothing more than making taxpayers bear the expense both of defending the lawsuit and paying the successful plaintiffs' attorneys fees."

Signatories to the letter also included Time Warner Inc.'s (TWX) AOL, Comcast Corp. (CMCSA, CMCSK), eBay Inc. (EBAY), Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS), Facebook, Monster Worldwide Inc. (MNST), Reed Elsevier NV (ENL).

-By Andrew Edwards, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5973; Andrew.Edwards@ dowjones.com