Comment by Cthulhu_

> Someone I know mentioning a product because they want to recommend it to me? Not advertising.

Except that it is, and it's why social media is so important for marketeers; the best kind of advertising is word-to-mouth, so generating discourse about products is big business.

Anyway, without strict legislation and tight controls on social media / chat / RL, how would you know whether they would be getting paid or not?

It's a legal and / or philosophical conundrum, not to mention even more of a legal whack-a-mole than it already is.