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Comment by ramboldio | Hacker News Reader

The headline in a domestic newspaper reads "There are some product placements that influencers do not need to label as ads"

https://www.zeit.de/digital/internet/2021-09/bundesgerichtsh...

it's all about framing

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The ruling was actually in favor of influencers, as before almost everything had to be labeled as an ad. Now there is a ruling that makes a lot of exceptions. So the headline you cited is closer to the truth IMHO.

This is a better headline, as it clarifies the situation. The Reuters headline, that influencers must label posts as ads when money changes hands, is not really news - the law was voted on this June, and goes into effect at the beginning of next year.

Hmm - ok, I've squeezed a 'some' up there to make it less misleading. Thanks!

I just read the article and from the facts listed in it the decision seems fairly reasonable.

Hopefully this will generate a bit more legal reliability for them. The current legal situation was (and probably still is) somewhat absurd.

> it's all about framing

My pet peeve are the news snippets in Google Discover or Google News, which then lead to a paywalled article.

From my point of view these snippets are all ads for the newspaper or magazine which is promoting them by giving Google access to index them.

One could argue that they are not actively promoting their articles, that it is Google who is "stealing" the content and publishing it, but then again, they want to be monetized through the "Leistungsschutzrecht" (Ancillary copyright for press publishers), so they are well aware that having their articles indexed is beneficial to them. They might as well add a robots.txt file, which is respected by Google.

They are also formatting their articles in such a way, that the snippets are as attractive as possible, which becomes obvious when you read an article and have the feeling that you're reading 3 times the same content until you get to the real information.

These snippets are clearly ads and Google should have to label them as such, unless the content is free-to-view.

This is not new. Newspapers typically were folded so you could read the headline on the front page before deciding to buy it. And then you'd have a paperboy yelling "Extra! Extra! Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor!"

What does "übertrieben werblich" even mean?

Did those people read any Apple fanboy blogs lately? These people actually pay Apple AND write overboarding positive reviews.

That's the zeitgeist.

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