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I wonder if it would be possible to make unsolicited advertisement illegal. Something difficult to imagine in the world we live in, but I believe it could be possible: - no ads in the public space - magazines and newspapers with 2 versions: with ads (lower price) and without ads (higher price) - TV and radio: special channels only for ads - internet: banners are blank and marked as Ad, you can only see them if you click on them. Wishful thinking?

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'no ads in the public space' seems to me like one of those well-intentioned ideas that sounds good but has a lot of edge cases. What about if I am a plumber and I have my business logo on the side of my truck. Is that advertising? What if I have a sign in front of my shop? If someone really likes skittles and they mention that (unpaid) on a TV show is that advertising? What if skittles sends me some free skittles after, is it retroactively advertising now? What if I have a negative experience with one provider that ends up driving business to a different provider when I relay it. Is that advertising?

It seems like instead of starting from an overly broad position the best thing to do would be to start specifically. We could start by moving content online back into being protocol-based instead of walled gardens. Let me subscribe or not subscribe to whatever content I want without being beholden to a platform.

This is a non-issue. There is a reason laws aren't written in one line.

And if you did want to write it in close to one line, it wouldn't be particularly difficult either.

Simply outlaw _selling_ (or giving away) of ad space in public.

You want to put your own logo on your storefront, side of vehicle, brochure, public bus, charging station? Sure. You want to sell that space to the highest bidder to place their own ad? Nope.

This would eliminate 99% of billboards, bus stop ads, etc without creating any ambiguity as to whether a business is allowed to identify itself in public.

One caveat might be that it would be desirable to carve out an allowance for e.g. "10% of sales go to Charity X".

Good news! I now am a landlord whose sole property for lease is land upon which a sign can be placed. I also offer an unrelated sign building service and my friend offers a sign painting service!

That's great. Now you can advertise your sign building service on your property.

If we assume advertising is ROI positive, wouldn't this quickly become a world where only the biggest companies could advertise? Apple has a large retail footprint and could buy the physical billboard footprint; my local tax accountant cannot.

The length of a law doesn’t reduce its murkiness - in fact it makes it more pronounced. That is why (in the common law systems) there is so much discussing and re-discussing of topics that plenty of other cases already covered, using new approach angles. If you make laws longer and more complex, you only make them serve more those that have the budget to explore all branches of the decision tree.

I mean, sure. Corruption exists. But the that's another issue entirely. Your comment doesn't add to the question of the GP - "does the existence of edge cases make implementing a law extremely difficult?" The answer is no. You could probably outline all the exceptions and applications of such a law in a few pages.

Most of these questions have easy answers in the implementations already out there:

* Set a maximum size on a sign. You can have a sign in front of your shop or on your car as long as it isn't larger than a well-defined square footage.

* If no one paid to have skittles mentioned, it's not advertising.

* Accepting and giving gifts in professional contexts is already known to be fraught, an anti-advertising law wouldn't significantly alter that.

* If the competitor paid you to share the negative experience or paid for the airtime/venue in which your shared it, it's advertising, otherwise it's not.

The Amazon Kindle does a version of this. They offer a more expensive ad-free version and a cheaper one that displays ads on the lock screen. I have already chosen twice to pay more for the ad-free model, and I'm glad to have been given the choice.

FWIW, I have one of the the ad version Kindles and rarely notice the ads. And the ones I have seen are not even close to anything I would want.

It’s not wishful thinking, at least for public spaces it isn’t.

It is one of the best things that have happened in Poland imho.

https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/before-and-after-pics-r...

https://i.redd.it/landscape-law-in-gdańsk-v0-uo6ihqfs43ba1.j...

https://www.boredpanda.com/before-after-removing-ads/?utm_so...

As far as public ads they're doing exactly that in Sao Paulo Brazil. I love the idea.

This is unlikely to happen in most cities, as avertising is embedded in our culture now. Can you imagine what NYC and Times Square would look like with no ads? (Turns out much better[1] IMO, but I'm not sure everyone would agree.)

Rather, I think the only way to make this happen is to move adblockers to the real world. The user would wear AR goggles that would hide any detected ads. I'll be using that the second AR becomes accessible for everyday outdoor use. An audio adblocker would be great as well.

[1]: https://www.newsweek.com/times-square-new-york-no-adverts-lo...

> I'll be using that the second AR becomes accessible for everyday outdoor use.

I probably wouldn't. I'd just keep doing what I currently do -- avoid environments that are saturated with ads.

"no ads in the public space" - you mean kind of like this? https://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/07/sao-paulo-city-with-no...

"TV and radio: special channels only for ads " - we have cable channels without ads

"internet: banners are blank and marked as Ad" - why would anyone click?

It would work if adblockers were honest and didn't try to evade detection. Free -> accept ads, otherwise pay. Fair.

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