[bruce511]

Define "advertising". I feel this might be hard to do.

For example is my blog talking about Windows considered as Advertising? What about my blog discussing products we make? What about the web site for my local restaurant?

If I add my restaurant location to Google maps, is that advertising? Are review sites?

If I'm an aggregator (like booking.com) and I display the results for a search is that advertising?

I assume though you meant advertising as in 3rd party advertising. So no Google ad words, no YouTube ads etc. Ok, let's explore that...take say YouTube...

Can creators still embed "sponsored by" scenes? Can they do product placement?

Your suggestion is, unfortunately, not implementable. Leaving aside the merit for a moment, there's just no way that any politician can make it happen. Google and Facebook are too big, with too much cash to lobby with. And that's before you tell everyone that the free internet is no more, now you gotta pay subscriptions.

And, here's the kicker, even if you did force users to pay for Facebook and Google, it's still in their interest to maximize engagement...

[stingraycharles]

Advertising = compensating someone to promote a product / company.

It’s about the compensation. That makes it advertising.

Regular booking.com is fine. Paying booking.com to allow your results to appear higher is not.

Regular Google Maps to register your restaurant is fine. Paying Google Maps to promote your restaurant is not.

It’s not that hard to implement. Advertising is pretty well defined.

[kenjackson]

What people who advertise indirectly on the internet. For example the ads around a baseball field - can that baseball game no longer be streamed? Product placement in a movie - can that movie only be in theaters and DVD, but not Netflix? Could streaming companies show previews of coming shows on their own platform?

I also assume it means that sites like X could no longer charge for verified accounts.

[roysting]

You will just see the shift of the methods used in government corruption to circumvent such rules, e.g., your wife gets a wildly lucrative “book deal” right after you do something, and then when time has passed, you also get a “book deal” or are hired to speak at exorbitant fees or get hired in some BS position or are made a member of a board, or your children are hired as executives or even made board members.

The problem with the direct approach, i.e., “ban advertising”, is that it is hung up on a specific term, not the underlying dynamic/system. It’s fighting a symptom, not the disease/cause.

[dahart]

Promotion of anything at all is advertising, with or without compensation. The word advertising is pretty well defined, and the dictionary definitions don’t usually mention compensation, e.g. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/advertise.

An example I’m sure you would consider advertising - consider Google advertising Google Fiber in Google search results, or Facebook advertising business services on Facebook, or Apple, Netflix, Cinemark advertising their own shows & products in their own channels. You’ve seen lots of these, I’m sure you would consider them ads, but it’s not the compensation that makes them ads.

[yunohn]

> Paying booking.com to allow your results to appear higher is not.

But booking takes a cut of the booking in all scenarios, so they’re already incentivized to prioritize results that result in more profit for them. This all gets very tricky unfortunately.

[nozzlegear]

How would something like Github Sponsors work? Lots of projects use a "sponsor us for $LARGE_SUM and we'll mention you in our readme and release notes" model.

[throw0101c]

> Advertising = compensating someone to promote a product / company.

So basically all full-time Youtubers who do in-video ad reads, including, but not limited to: MKBHD, Linus Tech Tips, Veritasium, Smarter Every Day, minutephysics, Computerphile, Tom Scott, Patrick Boyle, The Plain Bagel, Sailing La Vagabonde, Sailing SV Delos, Gone with the Wynns, etc.

[Barbing]

What would YouTube look like?

(Genuinely happy to read “like the good old days” as an answer!)

[Someone]

> Advertising = compensating someone to promote a product / company.

> It’s about the compensation. That makes it advertising.

if you rent a billboard or space on Google.com, you’re not paying to promote a product/company; you’re just renting space.

So, if you then, yourself, put your company logo there, you’re saying that’s not advertising, but if you pay your nephew to put it there, it is?

[bruce511]

>> Advertising = compensating someone to promote a product / company.

That's a definition, sure. I feel like it leaves loopholes (under this definition spam isn't advertising, and I guess affiliation programs are?)

If I pay someone to print flyers is that advertising? If I pay squarespace for my site, is that advertising?

What if I need a Google maps subscription to place pins? Is placing a pin then advertising? Even if the subscription gives me other abilities?

Under your definition I guess YouTube creators can't be sponsored. And all existing videos with sponsorship need yo be removed? And I guess no online watching of sports (lots of people paid to wear a logo there...)

Presumably no product placement in Netflix shows (not sure what to do with old content?)

Of course I'm not paid to advertise MiraclePill. My channel exists purely thanks to patreon. No, I don't know that my "executive level" patreons are all MiraclePill employees...

No, I don't pay Google for ads, the ads are free when I purchase GoogleCoin which I buy because I expect GoogleCoin to go up in value...

>> Advertising is pretty well defined.

Alas, I fear it isn't...

[littlecranky67]

In a lot of countries in the EU, advertising for tobaco products, prescription medication, lawyer/docts are prohibited. That ban has been working quite well for decades.

[onion2k]

This is true, but it's worth adding that there are no blog posts about those things either, or articles, discussions, etc except in very limited niche places dedicated to talking about them.

If there was a ban on 'internet advertising of anything' then it would basically kill all discussion of any products on the internet.

[baxtr]

In the US, sport teams usually don’t have sponsors on their jerseys. In the EU they do have every inch covered.

[xg15]

I think ad networks and tracking companies have a pretty good idea about what advertising is.

[rrgok]

Just answer this question: do you get a compensation for showing me something that I did not click for?

[reddalo]

What about just banning personalized advertising? Like: you can pay Google Maps to show your result as sponsored, but Google can only show it to either everybody or randomized people.

[conductr]

They’re still incentivized to show you as much as possible. I don’t think this moves the needle much.

[Kerrick]

> The Commission believes these terms are sufficiently clear and declines to add definitions of these terms.

- https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/documents/federal_re...

[atoav]

You get money from others to show certain content on you platform.

[kerkeslager]

Let's drop the charade where you pretend you don't know what advertising is. You're smarter than that, and your playing dumb act would be more persuasive if you didn't ask leading questions that clearly show you know the answers. This isn't a good faith argument.

I mean are you really asking whether creators embedding "sponsored by" scenes is an ad as if you don't know? C'mon, don't insult your readers with this nonsense.

HN commenters are not legislators, and even if random HN commenters can't draft legislation, that doesn't mean that a minimally-funded team of experts would have any difficulty with the problem.

[dwedge]

I agree with you but I also agree with the person you wrote to. There's a section in Naomi Klein's No Logo about banning advertising, and what that would actually mean in effect. It essentially comes down to not allowing, for example, different cereal brands to have different designs because then the design of the box becomes a kind of advertising.

It might sound nit picking, and it absolutely is, but if we banned Internet advertising (at the exact definition you personally consider advertising to be), you can guarantee the advertising industry would be looking at exactly these loopholes until you reframed your definition.

It's much like how in the UK they banned advertising for tobacco, and years later had to expand it so that supermarkets cannot even show the products visibly because the brand has their own inherent advertising that's visible if you can see it.

[maccard]

OPs comment isn’t a charade, he’s pointing out that it’s a very blurry line.

If I receive compensation from company A for a product, and I genuinely like it, is it advertising if I talk about another item on their product line that I bought because of the free item I got?

If I run a retail business, and have a better deal with a provider, am I allowed to prioritise their results?

If I run an AI SAAS, with a bring your own key model, am I allowed to recommend a provider that I think gives the best results, even if my margin is bigger on that model?

I’m not trying to gish gallop you here - the point isn’t to cherry pick any specific example it’s that advertising isn’t just a billboard or a sponsored VPN segment in a YT video.

> HN commenters are not legislators

That doesn’t mean we’re not allowed to have a discussion about it.

> a minimally funded team of experts would have any difficulty with the problem.

I’m a hugely pro EU person, and support the vast majority of what they do. The Cookie Banner is a disaster and has just resulted in a massive step back for the Internet worldwide. The USB C charger rule missed the forest for the trees. Their stance on technology has been poor, misguided and misunderstood, and often pushes the needle towards US companies winning out.

[Moldoteck]

i would ban any advertising that targets populations on individual/subgroup behavior. Maybe targeting on country/language level at most, otherwise - just untargeted ads. Another option could be artificial slowdown of loading the content. Eg each content display general element (post, video, image) to be loaded with 0.5-1sec delay from the current in focus content

[toofy]

anything where you take any kind of compensation/gift to display/discuss a product.

[jodrellblank]

To quote Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it".

> "Your suggestion is, unfortunately, not implementable."

How about trying it before giving up? Cookie banners were implementable. Laws requiring ID schemes are being implemented. Know-your-customer laws have been implemented. GDPR has been implemented. HIPPA and Sarbanes-Oxley have been implemented. Anti-pornography laws have been implemented despite the gotcha of "but but how will anyone tell what's porn and what isn't?".

"not making a decision" is a decision. Companies are exploiting advertising - trying to avoid doing anything that might be imperfect because it's hard is taking a position, and it's a position in favour of explotative advertising.