>The way I see it it's a consenting relationship between sellers and consumers I've not yet found out how to withdraw my consent for seeing ads when I'm walkin

>The way I see it it's a consenting relationship between sellers and consumers I've not yet found out how to withdraw my consent for seeing ads when I'm walking in the street. PS to answer your question: >What's wrong with advertising in general exactly? Have a look at the psychological techniques that are used in ads. Many many ads are based on inciting fear, so even if they "don't work" on you in the sense of getting you to buy a product, they might still work on you in the sense of inciting fear. They even managed to sell candy bars based on fear: if you're hungry you might get grumpy and will be socially ostracized. Air fresheners are sold with the message that people will dislike you if your house stinks. Ads for gambling usually target sad and lonely people in a pretty obvious way ("if you win the lottery you'll have friends"). There are other techniques too. Teenage body image issues resulting from ads have been well documented. Etc.. etc.. etc. There's armies of well-paid psychologists working on getting under your skin every which way, using focus groups, sociological research, brain scans...