We already have laws saying that advertising must be marked as such. And the advertising companies are trying to make the marks as invisible as possible.
How little font size can you use? Maybe a size that a person with perfect eyesight can read, but older people cannot, and even the person with perfect eyesight would easily miss it, that is technically legal, isn't it? What if the font color is hard to distinguish from the background color? How far from the advertisement can the warning be placed? If there is a warning, and a small advertisement next to it, and then a longer unrelated text written in different visual style, but still on the same page, it is obvious that the warning applies also to that other text, right? Or, if you are Google, just say that "everyone knows" that the first two or three search results are paid for, so there is no reason to mark them explicitly.
(EDIT: What words should you use for the warning. "Advertisement?" "Sponsored links?" Is it okay to use some words that 90% of your readers would not be sure what they mean, but technically they mean what they are supposed to?)
Then there is the question of what exactly counts as "paid speech". If I send the money directly to you, obviously. If I instead send them to a charity you own? If there is no cash, but I give you hundred bottles of wine? Does it make a difference if you write wine reviews, and you use samples from my gift? If I send you a computer with pre-installed software that you review, and I tell you that you don't have to send the computer back when you are done? If I invite you for an expensive vacation... sorry, I meant "conference", paid by my company? Or what if I never give you anything, just offer to write the articles for you, so you can give them to your boss and take your salary without having to do any work? What if you actually pay me for writing the content, but I give you a discount if I can choose the topic? What if I offer free food for members of the press when they provide coverage for my event? What if no transaction ever happens, but I will simply provide coverage for my friends and ignore the people I don't know.
I am not sure if a clear line can actually be made here. Taken to extreme, even private bloggers would not be allowed to write blogs about topics they are interested in, without providing some disclaimer like "the topic of this article was not chosen impartially". That would be silly, wouldn't it? But then, everyone with more obvious conflict of interest will claim that their case is analogical to this.
How little font size can you use? Maybe a size that a person with perfect eyesight can read, but older people cannot, and even the person with perfect eyesight would easily miss it, that is technically legal, isn't it? What if the font color is hard to distinguish from the background color? How far from the advertisement can the warning be placed? If there is a warning, and a small advertisement next to it, and then a longer unrelated text written in different visual style, but still on the same page, it is obvious that the warning applies also to that other text, right? Or, if you are Google, just say that "everyone knows" that the first two or three search results are paid for, so there is no reason to mark them explicitly.
(EDIT: What words should you use for the warning. "Advertisement?" "Sponsored links?" Is it okay to use some words that 90% of your readers would not be sure what they mean, but technically they mean what they are supposed to?)
Then there is the question of what exactly counts as "paid speech". If I send the money directly to you, obviously. If I instead send them to a charity you own? If there is no cash, but I give you hundred bottles of wine? Does it make a difference if you write wine reviews, and you use samples from my gift? If I send you a computer with pre-installed software that you review, and I tell you that you don't have to send the computer back when you are done? If I invite you for an expensive vacation... sorry, I meant "conference", paid by my company? Or what if I never give you anything, just offer to write the articles for you, so you can give them to your boss and take your salary without having to do any work? What if you actually pay me for writing the content, but I give you a discount if I can choose the topic? What if I offer free food for members of the press when they provide coverage for my event? What if no transaction ever happens, but I will simply provide coverage for my friends and ignore the people I don't know.
I am not sure if a clear line can actually be made here. Taken to extreme, even private bloggers would not be allowed to write blogs about topics they are interested in, without providing some disclaimer like "the topic of this article was not chosen impartially". That would be silly, wouldn't it? But then, everyone with more obvious conflict of interest will claim that their case is analogical to this.