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This begs the question: how could you reliably distinguish advertising from other forms of free speech? The courts already distinguish "commercial speech" as a

• graemep 2y ago
  I think it is a good question, but there are some answers. For one thing, it is paid for, though a system set up for the purpose of putting commercial speech on someone else's profit making media. Many laws do draw lines in areas that are equally difficult. Its a problem, but far from a fatal one.
• gjsman-1000 2y ago
  Well, the thought piece had one simple answer: Were you paid to say it, with the intent of motivating said person, to buy a product? Though, this piece made me groan with the buzzwords "a micro-awakening of the self." Great way to make me cringe if I send it to someone.
  • philipwhiuk 2y ago
    > Were you paid to say it, with the intent of motivating said person, to buy a product? For the waiter, this is probably true.
    • goatlover 2y ago
      So we exempt waiters. No one seriously thinks waiters are what the article is about.
    • hfgjbcgjbvg 2y ago
      Then illegal. Simple. And I like it tbh
      • logicchains 2y ago
        Think for a moment about what kind of horrible totalitarian system you'd need to be living in for it to be able to jail a waiter just for making a product recommendation. Given the current US administration, how could anyone in their right mind think it's a good idea to give the government that kind of power?
        • jason_oster 2y ago
          Who said the punishment would be imprisonment? Fine the waiter $5 for every violation. Such a small fine will be orders of magnitude higher than what advertisers pay.
          • logicchains 2y ago
            What happens if he doesn't pay the fine? He goes to jail. All laws are enforced with the threat of jail, otherwise nobody would follow them. So not only do you need an all-pervasive surveillance system to identify when a waiter tries to market something, but also a justice system with the power to jail him for doing so.
          • yunohn 2y ago
            You’re right! Luckily everyone on HN works in the IT basement, so they can stay blissfully ignorant about how their company ever makes any money from the exquisite code they’re writing…
      • readams 2y ago
        Presumably they can't have a menu either? The menu might induce you to buy something.
        • saulpw 2y ago
          You can always opt-in. Advertising is specifically information that is not requested.
• 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
  Many lines are hard to draw but we benefit from trying to draw them. Worrying too much would be bikeshedding The biggest example that comes to mind is gambling. Japan says it's not gambling if the pachinko place gives you balls and then you have to walk next door to a "different" company to cash out the balls. I say it sounds like their laws are captured by the pachinko industry. Video game loot boxes are technically legal but most of us don't want children gambling. Even if the game company doesn't pay you for weapon skins, there's such a big secondary market that it constitutes gambling anyway. Just like the pachinko machines.
  • uniq7 2y ago
    Any laws with blurred lines will be used by the people in power against their political adversaries to keep them in power.
    • tppiotrowski 2y ago
      I agree with this. Any law that's not universally enforced: speeding, jaywalking, tax audit, etc is a tool for political persecution.
    • IshKebab 2y ago
      All laws have blurred lines. I guess you could say some are a lot more blurred than others.
  • autoexec 2y ago
    > I say it sounds like their laws are captured by the pachinko industry. It wasn't just the pachinko industry that tied the hands of Japanese government. It was the people too. It's a lot harder to ban something and keep it banned when everybody wants it. Thankfully, not many people want ads, but pachinko was popular enough that it makes sense to continue to let people do it. You're right about still getting a benefit. Even after carving out exceptions, banning gambling broadly otherwise is effective enough to solve a lot of the problems that unregulated gambling can cause. I do think video game loot boxes are something that needs regulation. Not just because it is gambling, but because the games can be unfair and even adversarial. Casinos exploit and encourage adult gambling addicts but at least those games are required to be "fair" (no outright cheating) and they have to be honest about how unfair the odds against you are. A supposedly impartial third party goes around making sure casinos are following the rules. Video games don't have any of that and they're targeting children on top of it.
• binarymax 2y ago
  Hard rules are fallible, but we can lean on precedent in the supreme court for an adjacent topic (obscenity): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
• Apreche 2y ago
  The answer is the same way we banned cigarette ads.
  • oblanvil 2y ago
    Yep, such an obvious & simple answer. I’m always amazed by how much ink gets poured before somebody mentions the obvious: this question has already been answered in a different context.
• kiicia 2y ago
  There are two ways of trying to achieving goal. One is to start from big picture, think if we even want to do something, then plan how to go there. Second is to start from technicalities and probably immediately go nowhere. You are starting from technicalities before you even took the moment to actually think of goal is worth it. If it is worth it and we would indeed be better off - plan how to go there, it may not be easy, but it will be possible this way or another. If it is not worth it after all - just say it, no technicalities needed, redirect time and effort elsewhere.
• arrosenberg 2y ago
  It’s not speech that needs to be regulated, it’s broadcast (which should not have 1A protections at nearly the same level). Even if a waiter is giving recommendations, those are limited to the people at the table and there is clearly a mutual exchange of value. Broadcast (aka Industrial) advertising is something we accept, but not because it particularly benefits the viewer. It benefits the broadcaster and advertiser and makes the viewer into a product.
  • ambicapter 2y ago
    I think this is the best insight on this thread. Laws of this kind would be like banning billboards in cities, which has been done.
    • throwanem 2y ago
      And we already regulate actual broadcast on this basis. For example, it violates no rule to include valid Emergency Broadcast System/Emergency Alert System tones (the electronic, machine-interpretable "chirps") in a movie or TV show, or to publish that via streaming, DVD etc. But no one does this, because broadcasting spurious tones (and triggering spurious automated broadcast interruptions) carries serious first-instance fines to which FCC licensees (ie distributors via broadcast) agree as a condition of licensure. They know they aren't allowed to do this and, very occasional and expensive mishaps excepted, they won't take the risk. (1) So program material that wants to include those tones has to make sure they're excluded from the TV edit, or decide whether the verisimilitude is worth the limit on audience access. While the specifics of course vary among cases, the basic theory of broadcast (ie distribution) as distinct from and less protected than speech, with the consequential distinction drawn specifically along the scale at which speech is distributed, seems clear. (1) Some may note instances such as one of the Purge films (iirc) that seem to contradict this claim. Compare the tones in those examples with the ones in test samples or generated by a compliant encoder [1] for the "Specific Area Message Encoding" protocol. Even without a decoder, the FSK frequencies and timings have to be resilient to low-bandwidth channels designed to carry human voice, so it's all well within audible ranges and you can hear the difference between real tones and what a movie or show can safely use. Typically either the pitch is dropped below compliant ranges, or the encoding is intentionally corrupted, or both. But almost always, the problem is just sidestepped entirely, since it's the attention tone that everyone really notices anyway. [1] https://cryptodude3.github.io/same/ https://cryptodude3.github.io/same/ is no more certified than mine but has, unlike my own implementation, been tested against a real EAS ENDEC. At some point I want to test mine against that one and find out how badly I screwed up reading the spec ten years ago...
• niemandhier 2y ago
  Money. It’s advertising if mony or anything equivalent flows in any form, even after the act. Many countries have laws against corruption that are structured like that.
  • OJFord 2y ago
    So if you accept GP's waiter's rosé suggestion, it was advertising, and if you don't it was not? (Schrösédinger, if you will.)
    • niemandhier 2y ago
      No but your doctor would have to think twice about recommending this drug that he got to know about at the company sponsored golf trip.
  • DeepSeaTortoise 2y ago
    So if a restaurant rents a property to build a really nice looking outdoor dining area, do they have to surround it with walls so people arent convinced by it to dine there?
    • thfuran 2y ago
      No. Why would they?
    • LtWorf 2y ago
      You understand there's a difference between a photo of a restaurant and a restaurant itself?
      • DeepSeaTortoise 2y ago
        How edible does the paper, the photo is printed on, need to be to become acceptable advertising?
        • LtWorf 2y ago
• djoldman 2y ago
  In the communications industry there are SOME fairly bright definitions: - Advertising and marketing are when an entity pays some other entity to transmit content - Public relations is when an entity, without paying, causes another entity to transmit content - Public affairs is when an entity causes a governmental entity to consume specific content at minimum, up to possibly influencing decisions. It should go without saying that this is without paying as well, otherwise it's corruption/bribery
  • kodt 2y ago
    >- Advertising and marketing are when an entity pays some other entity to transmit content So all usage of the internet would apply?
    • djoldman 2y ago
      I guess I could have been more specific. ...an entity A pays some other entity B to transmit some specific content to a third party to induce the third party to take action that benefits the paying entity A.
• mc32 2y ago
  If money exchanges hands. If you pay someone to distribute flyers, or you pay someone to run ads. If you expect a this for that that benefits the giver. Like say a pharma offering free airfare and lodging to a medical conference if you talk up their product to patients. There will be corner cases, obscure circumstances, unforeseen loopholes, etc., but this would be a good start.
  • antasvara 2y ago
    Worth questioning who that benefits the most. It definitely benefits consumers in the sense that they won't be bombarded by advertisements. But it also benefits large businesses that already spent millions advertising and now have a much deeper moat. It kind of reminds me of college sports before NIL deals. Back then, you couldn't pay college recruits. You'd think this levels the playing field, right? In fact, we saw the opposite effect. You see schools spending millions to add waterslides to their locker rooms, or promising "exposure" that smaller schools can't offer. You essentially had to spend twice as much on stuff that indirectly benefited the players. I'd expect similar things to happen among businesses. Think "crazy stunt in Times Square so that an actual news site will write about it."
• kelseyfrog 2y ago
  The ambiguity of these questions is a feature rather than a bug. Being unable to tell when something is "advertising" forces everyone to think twice before hawking their wares, which is exactly what we want if we intend to kill ads. The chilling effect is precisely the intention. It’s the engineer’s curse to believe that airtight laws are automatically better, or that justice springs from mechanistic certainty. The world is fundamentally messy, and the sooner we accept its arbitrariness, the sooner we can get to an advertising-free world.
  • tener 2y ago
    So we end up in a system in which those with money to litigate will do what they want? I'd rather have airtight laws instead.
    • _def 2y ago
      That's where we are right now. Airtight laws are impossible in complex systems.
      • tener 2y ago
        Sure, but I meant airtight as a point on a spectrum rather than absolute thing. Meaning: you should prefer laws which are both generic and unambiguous.
    • kelseyfrog 2y ago
      Can you point to an airtight law regarding speech that exists today - both as written and enforced? I can't. This is a worse is better[1] situation. Specifically, I'm arguing against the MIT approach to lawmaking. The MIT approach: > The design must be consistent. A design is allowed to be slightly less simple and less complete to avoid inconsistency. Consistency is as important as correctness. Thinking about laws like software terminates thought. 1. https://www.dreamsongs.com/WIB.html https://www.dreamsongs.com/WIB.html
  • Brian_K_White 2y ago
    No. This is called selective enforcement and is the worst thing in the world. It gives the enforcers the option to pick on whoever they want and give a pass to whever they want, as if there were no law at all. There is effectively no law at all, because literally anyone doing anything can be called either guilty or innocent at the whim of the person doing the enforcing, or whoever controls them.
• ASalazarMX 2y ago
  The free samples are interesting. No one got mad because people offered cheese samples at the grocery store, because they're not forced to eat them. I dread passing by the perfume island when I go shopping because the vendors can be persistent, but IMO that is also not blatant advertising. Offering free samples of perfumes inside magazines also doesn't offend anyone, but that's clearly paid advertising and would be illegal.
• stock_toaster 2y ago
  In addition to sibling commenters mentioning incentive-side (eg. paid to promote) considerations, I also propose both an "immersion" and/or "consent" component. When you are dining, and are suggested food pairings -- I'm there to eat, so suggesting something food related from the same establishment, that may enhance my meal experience, makes sense and generally does not feel unduly interruptive. In a way, I consent to being offered additional interesting and available food items at that time and place. I would not find it acceptable if the waiter brought out a catalog and tried to sell me shoes or insurance. In a similar way, I don't mind (and often even enjoy or appreciate) movie trailers at the beginning of movies. I'm there to watch a movie, and in a fairly non-interruptive way (before the start of the movie) I am presented with some other movies coming out soon. Nice. I consent to seeing them at the start of a movie, and they are relevant to the subject matter. I would certainly be irritated if they were hoisted upon me in the middle of the movie, or if they were about new cars coming out soon. I have also at times been actively searching for something I need or want to purchase, but am unsure what exactly I am looking for or what are the best options. At that time I would certainly be more open and interested in seeing advertisements regarding the types of items I am interested in. I would "consent" to seeing interest based advertisements. Summary: I do not enjoy being interrupted with advertisements completely unrelated to whatever activity I am taking part in. I only want to see them when it is related to what I am doing, AND when I consent to seeing them.
  • lostdog 2y ago
    Airline credit card announcements on flights is a perfect example of what should be banned, but getting the law right is tricky. IMO it should be illegal due to using a system for safety announcements for non-safety profit related reasons.
• lukan 2y ago
  I would start with obvious things, like banning distracting blinking advertisement next to roads and go further from there. Rule of thumb, all aggressive unwanted information. Clear? For sure not, like you said. But I am considering (rather dreaming) moving to La Palma, a vulcano island that banned all light advertisement (they did so, because of the observatories on top, but they are cool). Still, a city without aggressive lights would be nice. Some lights are probably unavaidable in big cities, but light that is purposeful distracting, should be just banned. And online is kind of a different beast, as we voluntarily go to the sites offering us information (but thank god and gorhill for adblockers)
• fragmede 2y ago
  That's why it's such a stupid idea. People who want a world without advertising should create a product that will genuinely improve people's lives and be forced to work as a salesman selling that product and experience the practicalities of doing so before drawing lines. I'm not for unsolicited phone calls about my car's warranty during dinner, but advertising is not this universal evil that some make it out to be.
  • imiric 2y ago
    There's a world of difference between announcing the existence of a product to potentially interested demographics, and abusing people's privacy by collecting their personal data in order to build a profile of them so they can be micro-targeted by psychologically manipulative content that is misleading or downright false—oh, and their profile is now in perpetuity exchanged in dark markets, and is also used by private and government agencies for spreading political propaganda, and for feeding them algorithmic content designed to keep them glued to their screens so that they can consume more ads that they have no interest in seeing... And so on, and so forth. Whatever happened to product catalogs? Remember those? I'm interested in purchasing a new computer, so I buy the latest edition of Computer Shoppers Monthly. Companies buy ad space there, and I read them when I'm interested. The entire ecommerce industry could work like that. I go on Amazon, and I search for what I want to buy. I don't need algorithms to show me what I might like the most. Just allow me to search by product type, brand, and specifications, and I'm capable of making a decision. It would really help me if paid and promoted reviews weren't a thing, and I could only see honest reviews by people who actually purchased the product. This is a feature that ecommerce sites can offer, but have no incentive to.
• imiric 2y ago
  We don't need to go into absurd discussions in order to prevent 99% of the harm that comes from modern advertising. The line is clear: is money being exchanged in order to promote a product? That's advertising. Someone I know mentioning a product because they want to recommend it to me? Not advertising. Giving out "free" samples? Presumably someone is being paid to do that, so advertising. We can later quibble about edge cases and how to handle someone putting up a sign for their business. Many countries have regulations about visual noise, so that should be considered as well. But it's pretty easy to distinguish advertising that seeks to manipulate, and putting a stop to that. Hell, we could start by surfacing the dark data broker market and banning it altogether. That alone should remove the most egregious cases of privacy abuse.
  • OmarShehata 2y ago
    > The line is clear: is money being exchanged in order to promote a product? That's advertising. this is obviously not a clear line. No money is exchanged when I promote my own product through my own channels, nor when I promote my friends products, whether I disclose it as promotion, or disguise it as my genuine unaffiliated opinion. Sometimes it really is a genuine opinion! Even worse: sometimes a genuine opinion becomes an incentivized one later on as someone's audience grows the good news is there is a solution that doesn't require playing these cat & mouse games and top down authority deciding what is allowed speech: you want better ways to reach the people who want your product. Ads are a bad solution to a genuine problem in society. They will persist as long as the problem exists. People who sell things need ways to find buyers. Solve the root problem of discernment rather than punishing everyone indiscriminately
    • pishpash 2y ago
      Yellow books used to do that. Because you're right it's a matchmatching problem.
    • imiric 2y ago
      > People who sell things need ways to find buyers. No, you've got that backwards. People who sell things should have a way of announcing their product to the world. Buyers who are interested in that type of product should be the ones seeking out the companies, not the other way around. The current approach of companies pushing their products to everyone is how we got to the mess we are in today. Companies will cheat, lie, and break every law in existence in order to make more money. Laws need to be made in order for companies to stop abusing people. You know what worked well? Product catalogs. Companies buy ad space in specific print or digital media. Consumers can consult that media whenever they want to purchase a specific product. This is what ecommerce sites should be. Give the consumer the tools to search for specific product types, brands, specifications, etc.; get rid of fake reviews and only show honest reviews from verified purchases and vetted reviewers, and there you go. Consumers can discover products, and companies can advertise. This, of course, is only wishful thinking, since companies would rather continue to lie, cheat, and steal, as that's how the big bucks are made. I honestly find it disturbing that with all of humanity's progress and all the brilliant technology we've invented, all of our communication channels are corrupted by companies who want to make us buy stuff, and by propaganda from agencies that want to make us think or act a certain way. Like holy shit, people, is this really the best we can do? It's exhausting having to constantly fight against being manipulated or exploited.
• OJFord 2y ago
  I would propose 'unsolicited salesmanship'. If I enter your restaurant, car dealership, etc. then you can pitch & try to up-sell your goods and services to me. If I drive down a motorway or use your website, third-parties can't advertise their goods and services at me from spots you've sold them. (But you can tell me it will be faster to exit onto your toll road or that I should buy or upgrade my membership plan on the site.)
  • pishpash 2y ago
    So no third-party advertising. But that would then create bundling schemes where the restaurant sells you a bundle of their goods and some third-party goods together, for a kickback on the backend, or they make referrals.
    • OJFord 2y ago
      No, that's why I said 'unsolicited' rather than 'third-party', so take the motorway billboard toll road example - if you also happen to own the car dealership or the webapp, you can't advertise that, because that's not what I've come to your motorway for. And what's solicited or 'relevant' doesn't need to be rigidly defined in statutes (assuming common law) - the ASA or OfCom whoever it would be (UK examples) slaps fines on the rulebreakers and if they think they've interpreted the law correctly in good faith then it goes to court and we find out (and the growing body of case law helps future would-be-advertisers interpret it). The existing advertisement disclosure rules for social media for example don't allow the loophole you propose: a 'sponsored' segment shilling a product in a YouTube video isn't considered different from directly selling video time to the third-party in which to run their own ad reel.
  • mulmen 2y ago
    How do grocery stores work in this model?
    • thfuran 2y ago
      Same as they always have?
• tsss 2y ago
  Most things that people post online, voluntarily, is essentially advertising of one form or another.
• SecretDreams 2y ago
  No paid advertising, whether that involves financial compensation, in kind gifts, or something else. There would be no commercial ads online if google received no kickbacks to show ads. There would be no influencers, either. I'd be okay with non-profits and government agencies advertising benevolent things to us, like vaccinations. The only hard part is to develop systems to actually ensure nobody is receiving compensation if they are showing a product. I'd also be fine to make exceptions for internal advertising, e.g. you're already on the Google website and Google is advertising their own products/services to you.
  • yunohn 2y ago
    Vaccine ads are a great example, in that large parts of the population consider them as fake propaganda. Trump supporters were up in arms against Biden/Dems for promoting vaccines during COVID. With your logic RFK Jr would be very happy!
    • SecretDreams 2y ago
      Every good rule had exceptions. Advertising vaccines is fine. Frankly, we should advertise more education - then maybe we wouldn't have some of our current issues.
• mnky9800n 2y ago
  What about just restrict it to advertising on the internet? The internet is supposed to be an information retrieval tool. Advertising’s whole goal is to stand between you and the information you actually want. And it does so by trying to anticipate instead of the thing you want, the thing you are most willing to buy next, whether that’s actual products with money or propaganda. Whereas an ad in a magazine about computers offers me relevant ads for products about computers. And if you read old ad copy a lot of it is a serious effort to try and convince you to buy their product. From some kind of argument for it. Instead of simply using statistics and data to predict what you will buy next. So this required the product to actually deliver something to justify the effort to advertise it.
  • thfuran 2y ago
    >What about just restrict it to advertising on the internet? Why? I don't see the difference between a webpage and the magazine here, except that I guess you're assuming the webpage must be showing an unrelated ad.
    • kodt 2y ago
      Webpages also have the ability to capture far more data about who is viewing the ad, with the use of tracking cookies, browser fingerprinting etc..
• Epa095 2y ago
  It raises the question, it does not beg it. Begging the question is e.g saying 'If advertisement was bad for you it would be forbidden. Since it's not forbidden it's not bad for us. Therefor we should not forbid it.'
  • glacier5674 2y ago
    I've heard so many respectable intellectuals use "beg the question" instead of "raise the question" that correcting the usage has surpassed pedantry and gone into ignorance of "definition b". It's like correcting someone on the pronunciation of French-English forte. It just gets you uninvited next time.
• tehjoker 2y ago
  You don't need to draw a precise line, just one where things over the line are clearly undesirable, like billboards on roadways, TV commercials, etc. There are some countries with virtually no advertising. People who visit the DPRK come back saying it's like "Ad block for your life".
• ghssds 2y ago
  Remind me why corporations are protected by human rights such as free speech.
  • thfuran 2y ago
    Corporate personhood exists so that you can be hired by a company instead of a specific person in HR or have a cellphone contract with Verizon instead of a particular sales associate and companies can buy real estate and so on without requiring a whole bunch of extra legal work defining all the ways in which corporations are legally treated like natural persons. That necessarily includes giving corporations some of the same rights and duties as natural persons. But I do think that corporations have been given too many rights which have been interpreted too broadly. The notion that a corporation has a constitutional right to spend however much money it wants to influence politics due to free speech is ridiculous.
• Gud 2y ago
  Good question. Yet, unlock origin manage to filter out 99.99% of all all ads without blocking actual content, so must be possible!!
• Henchman21 2y ago
  This is precisely the sort of statement that derails the discussion and makes it impossible to even have. I imagine there’s a name for this sort of thing, perhaps some exquisitely long German word? So lets do this: ban all ads in print, video, and in-public. Make the fine so high that you’re going to have to declare bankruptcy and close up shop. Or just straight up revoke corporate charters. There’s your line. I’m happy to start here and negotiate backwards. But this needs to be in effect while we work it out. Advertising is killing us. I don’t need or want myself or my family constantly assaulted by ads. Finally, to be frank I find advertisements a sibling of propaganda. I don’t want either.
  • shadowgovt 2y ago
    One man's propaganda is another man's truth-to-power. There are dangerous consequences to handing the government the authority to ban public communication (even about mouthwash brands) without very careful scrutiny. Imagine if you couldn't advertise energy alternatives because oil and gas came first and, with advertising banned, we can't even talk about the relative merits of installing solar vs. buying coal-made grid electricity. The status quo will maintain until the planet cooks.
    • Henchman21 2y ago
      Yep, I hadn't considered things from this perspective at all. Thank you!
    • makapuf 2y ago
      There is a big difference between advertising and information. First, most people are generally not being paid by big energy alternatives to promote it. Of course we can talk about things. What we wouldn't be able is to be paid by someone to have a specific public discourse.
      • shadowgovt 2y ago
        > There's a big difference between advertising and information I recommend looking up the videos they made in the 1950s about how to use modern appliances, telephones, etc. and then noting that those videos were mostly paid for by the companies that manufactured those goods because they had a vested interest in people knowing how to use the tools so they would buy the tool. > What we wouldn't be able is to be paid by someone to have a specific public discourse. Widecast public communications always cost money. Always. Somebody is putting money forward to put a message on that billboard, or on that radio, or on that website. If we ban advertising but we aren't banning billboards, radio, and websites, we are tying off one category of communicator. Cynically, I would expect the result to not be an end to commercial advertising, but for more commercial advertising disguised as other things. I don't know that we would be able to disambiguate the two ideas, not in a world where, for example, public television programs are supported by the Sears Roebuck Corporation.
• sneak 2y ago
  “begs the question” means something entirely different than “raises the question”, fyi.
• rukuu001 2y ago
  I’d draw the line at publishers. Are you a publisher (ie responsible for every single thing that appears on your platform)? You can show advertising. Otherwise no. I know this isn’t in the spirit of the article, but I like the idea of a ad-spaces and ad-free spaces.
• noqc 2y ago
  It's actually really easy, you're not allowed to be compensated for your speech. It's free.
• directevolve 2y ago
  Not all countries have the same free speech protections as America. I can easily imagine a country that simply has a bureaucracy whose approval is required to publish TV programming, or one that bans banner ads in social media, billboards, restricts shop signs in various ways, requires all packaging in the store to be black and white, etc. Advertising doesn’t have to ve banned outright. It could be killed by a thousand specific rules targeting the most obnoxious forms, provided there wasn’t a constitutional issue in the country implementing these measures.
• Matumio 2y ago
  Yet we have laws against fraud, rape, and so on. Where do you draw the line for those? There are some crystal clear cases, and there are unclear cases where you could argue forever. So it is for advertising. You don't need to draw a clear line for every case before you can make a law. I like how it turned out with email advertising, actually: spam is defined to be whatever people put into their spam folder.
• tiborsaas 2y ago
  There is no line, to fully and strictly ban advertising we basically have to abandon democracy and capitalism. Advertising and capitalism a so tightly related that you can't have one without the other. You want no ads? Cool, let's familiarize yourself with North Korea. People might want to rather opt for ethical ad standards and regulations, something fundamental like... GDPR.
• thfuran 2y ago
  >What about a waiter asking you "would you like to try a rosé with that dish? It pairs very well together. Is that "advertising" that would need to be outlawed? Were they paid by a vintner to say that? >What about giving out free samples? Is that advertising, and thus should be illegal? To and by whom? From Nvidia to a GPU reviewer: Yes; from a chocolate shop to a patron: No. >What about putting a sign up on your business that says the business name? Is that advertising? No. Do you have any hard questions?
• kerkeslager 2y ago
  > This begs the question: how could you reliably distinguish advertising from other forms of free speech? That's a great question, but let's not lose sight of the fact that failing to legislate on this is 0% reliable. If we even are able to identify and ban 25% of advertising, that level of reliability is a massive improvement over doing nothing. Don't fall for the perfect solution fallacy. The reality is that some really basic, careful definitions of advertising would identify a huge percentage of advertising, without catching any cases that aren't advertising. As a starting point, if a corporation pays a person or corporation to display their corporation's name, product, or logo on a physical property, broadcast, or publication when they aren't directly selling your product, that's advertising. Maybe you can think of some cases where that catches some stuff it shouldn't, and I'm open to revising it. > What about giving out free samples? Is that advertising, and thus should be illegal? > What about putting a sign up on your business that says the business name? Is that advertising? I think this sort of handwringing is pretty silly. I don't care about either of those--I do care about "free samples" in the sense of auto-renewing free trials, but that's because the intent is to trick people into forgetting to cancel, not because it's advertising. Draw the line very conservatively, making a very clear definition of advertising that we can agree on illegal, and go from there as we see the effects (i.e. what loopholes people start to use). Regulation is an iterative process--start small and build.