As far as I know most locations have rules on what a sign can look like and what it can do. I don't think it would be legal to have a sign with a powerful strobe lamp, one that shoots lasers in people's eyes to attract their attention or one that blasts loud music (which would be the equivalent of flashy, distracting ads that we see on the web).
Also with a restaurant sign there's a business behind it with someone that can be held accountable for it. If you see an obvious scam or a fraudulent service advertised you can complain to them or the authorities and get it shut down. With online ads they can be purchased either completely anonymously (maybe even with a stolen credit card) or by a shell company somewhere on the other side of the world where you would have no recourse.
> As far as I know most locations have rules on what a sign can look like and what it can do. I don't think it would be legal to have a sign with a powerful strobe lamp, one that shoots lasers in people's eyes to attract their attention or one that blasts loud music
Most ad groups have regulations on what ads can and cannot do.
> With online ads they can be purchased either completely anonymously (maybe even with a stolen credit card) or by a shell company somewhere on the other side of the world where you would have no recourse.
Check the thread you're in. It's about an ad network addressing this specific problem.
> Most ad groups have regulations on what ads can and cannot do.
How do you explain Facebook ads for scams that claim price X but actually hammer your payment cards with multiple X * 10 charges until it declines? A friend got caught by that, we ended up doing a chargeback but Facebook didn't get punished in any way despite their complicity in this fraud.
How do you explain tech support scam ads?
How do you explain "chumboxes" like Outbrain/Taboola as in here: https://www.theawl.com/2015/06/a-complete-taxonomy-of-intern... (the image URLs are broken, you need to manually get the image's URLs, change the protocol to HTTPS and open the resulting link to see them).
Maybe some ad groups have internal regulations, but I as a user have no control of which ad networks I'm exposed to. On the other hand, in the street, all businesses have to comply with local laws and given that I don't see scam tech support banners or credit card scams advertised on storefronts I guess the laws are working, and if they aren't, laws can be amended if there's enough public support for it (some locations completely banned billboards for example).
> Check the thread you're in. It's about an ad network addressing this specific problem.
"Google will suspend the accounts of advertisers that do not provide proof of identity, including W9 forms, passports and other personal identification and business incorporation files"
Seems like a pretty low bar to clear with either forged documents (again, someone already breaking the law with scam or spam ads isn't going to be deterred by this), paying vulnerable people in a slum for scans of their passports or just using a string of shell companies to muddy the trail.
Fraud is a hard problem. It's fairly easy to find individual examples of malfeasance, the relevant question is what percentage of online ads are scams, compared to ads in other media.
I'll also note that you're now no longer arguing that advertisements are unethical, but that online advertisements are unethical, and not because they're "an attempt to psychologically manipulate the public" as was originally stated, or even because, as you originally claimed "Advertising doesn’t give you a choice on whether you want to see it."
We've moved the goalposts quite a bit. And I'm not interested in an in the weeds argument about the challenges of online fraud prevention. It won't be fruitful for anyone. I've proven my original point: you don't line online advertisements (and that's OK!), but you also don't have a clear reason that they're uniquely different than any other form of advertising, and you don't believe that advertising, in general, is unethical.
