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I see the following issue:
What is an ad? Is it an ad spot in the middle of a TV show? A big billboard? A banner on a website? Someone talking about a brand? Just writing or saying a brand name? Subtle algorithmic nudging?
You gotta put a line in the sand, and depending on where you put it, it'll be harder to influence anyone or harder to address brands or products. There's always a trade off.
And then additionally we gotta address any behavioural adaptions of big companies. Imagine if companies started striking illegal deals with social media companies for favourable algorithms? How do you control that? And on the other hand, imagine you were talking about a product and suddenly people accuse you of illegal advertising? How do you make sure people don't skirt the line and also no one is wrongly convicted?
I'm not saying this is a dumb idea, I actually agree cracking down on forceful or manipulative advertising is an interesting idea, I just think that these broad stroke ideas an insane amount of continuous planning, validation and readdressing.
Already had this discussion with people a dozen times.
Ban:
An individual or group providing money and/or goods and/or services to another individual or group to encourage or contract them to display, broadcast, or otherwise disseminate a piece of media or information to a third individual or group, in particular and/or in general, which the receiver/listener/viewer(s) has/have not specifically requested to receive.
Accepting, as an individual or as part of a group, money and/or goods and/or services by another individual or group to be encouraged or contracted to display, broadcast, or otherwise disseminate a piece of media or information to a third individual or group, in particular and/or in general, which the receiver/listener/viewer(s) has/have not specifically requested to receive.
Tying request of one piece of media to a noticeably disconnected/unrelated piece of media.
The ban on providing shall apply only to individuals or groups that have a gross revenue of greater than ~25x the annualized median wage for the smallest political jurisdiction which fully contains the territories they conduct business in. (For context, this would be ~$1,000,000 for a business in the US that conducts business across state lines)
Very interesting.
Tying this to the minimum wage has some unique consequences and I can see why you chose that.
I have to point out though that in your wording, disseminating information while you are working will be very hard. For example, going to conferences might get you convicted (working under a contract from a company and then disseminating information in that conference) and I imagine there's quite a few other things that could also fall under this, though I see you already did some very exact limits.
I feel like these lines could be drawn a bitore elegant but it's not like I'm a politician who has great understanding of laws and language in order to draft something like this.
Just to be precise, I did say median wage. Minimum wage would be a considerably lower threshold. (~$377k in the US) It's mostly meant to let it scale over time with fluctuations and inflation rather than tie it to a particular outcome, though minimum might have it's own benefits in some circumstances.
The conference example, however, is not an issue. If at the conference/convention as a paid/induced speaker, one would be made safe by the viewers' choice to come to the talk, which may contain many individual pieces of media but would have them all clearly linked by being part of the presentation, unless they attempted to include disconnected media, which would open them up to prosecution. The viewers would clearly be seeking to see the presentation unless they were directed to the room with the promise of something else and were having the presentation foisted upon them by surprise, an unlikely possibility given most such events are closed, ticketed events with posted signage, and could be further ensured by a simple verbal preface. 'I am Soandso McSuchnsuch and I am about to give a presentation on Blah. If you are expecting something else, please go now to prevent disruption during the presentation.'
If at the conference/convention as something like booth personnel, one would be obligated to wait until the visitors requested information but could then dispense the information freely.
And if at the conference/convention as a visitor, you would not be receiving payment, and would in fact be paying to be there, so you would be free from prosecution for the basic act of sharing stories with a colleague.
A simple line is if the ad was paid for. So sign twirlers... paid for. Person walking down the street in a brand shirt they paid for is not an ad. Talking about a product... did you get paid, ad. And of course free or discounted services and such equals getting paid. No more free X if you review a place on yelp. And don't worry about a new garbage service. People will talk even without getti g paid. And I think a carve out for an ad service that people can choose to view as needed. I don't have ads in my tv viewing. So I intentionally surf trailers once in a while. Much better experience.
Great points, and it's important we address this from a realistic perspective.
I don't have all the answers, but I would start with the low-hanging fruit to avoid penalizing innocent people. Pretty much everything we can all agree on is an ad would be prohibited, you could think of it as "systemic advertising." (ads in the middle of videos, billboards, banners). Would somebody wearing a branded shirt be considered advertising? Probably not. Would somebody standing on the side of the road twirling a sign for a business be advertising? Absolutely.
I don't think there's a "perfect" solution and some viral marketing is bound to get through. As with any crime, stopping it would depend on the resources available to the community.
I would consider a place where systemic advertising is illegal and penalties are enforced to be a success.
I think rather than address all advertising, it would be best and easiest to create a more specific "obnoxious advertising" category and put things in it as needed. Honestly I don't really care if someone twirls a sign, but if that becomes the go to and there are twirlers on every block then I'd get sick of them really fast.
But you also have to allow for things folks might genuinely want to know. If a local restaurant has a grand opening and you don't let them tell people, they at might have trouble getting foot traffic after they open. If I start up a competitor to a trash service, ads are likely the only way people are going to know my service is 15% cheaper.
I don't like advertising, but I do acknowledge a certain amount is probably necessary.
This is how you do it. You create clear and direct laws that specify what isn't okay. New Hampshire banned all billboards. I believe Vietnam recently banned all ads longer than 15 seconds online. These make it absolutely clear what is and isn't okay, and leave no wiggle room for companies to try to circumvent the laws on technicalities.
the post office has the cheapest targeted door-to-door advos you can get (which big corps/politicians abuse to absolutely spam the shit...which means people throw the shit away immediately. ironically the post office should charge more, or have some kind of local discount thing idk...)
And that's part of the issue; this assumes that we've somehow come to a consensus on what 'ads' are, or which are 'bad'. I can get behind getting rid of obtrusive ads, such as pop-ups and video interruptions, but I also actually like billboard advertisements (As long as they are in locations that respect what's around them, are legible from a distance (not wordy, I'm trying to drive!), and don't have eye-searing lights). When I travel, billboards often bring us to some interesting locations we may not have thought of before.
Personally, I'd look at making policies restricting "obtrusive advertising". I don't mind the advertising, I mind the delivery.