Comment by dathinab
4 hours ago
there are already regulations in the EU which say
- ADs need to be clearly recognizable as such
- bunch of other things related to deceiving users and customer protection
- the risk this enables in combination with target ads to trick a user into installing a look alike malware makes such designs IMHO negligent, and in the EU you are responsible for (your) negligence no matter what you put in some TOS
so why do we tolerate sites systematically blending the lines between ads and content in a way which makes it unclear what is and isn't an ad and is designed to deceive the user into clicking on an ad instead of the content they are looking for. Which to make it worse also has lead to absurd market practices where competitors can semi-hide your product by buying ads which puts their look alike products above your product every time a user looks for your product.
> so why do we tolerate sites systematically blending the lines between ads and content
Precisely because it has started to be regulated.
Pre regulation, companies were tiptoeing forward, creating a new market and seeing what they could get away with with their customers. Now there is regulation they have a line drawn in the sand for them, and they know exactly what they can and cant do to screw consumers. Therefore they all now toe that line, and push as close to it as they can without crossing it.
What follows is a never ending cat and mouse game of companies finding loopholes in the regulation and regulators rushing to catch up and close the holes.
> so why do we tolerate
Regular people outside tech couldn't care less. They scroll endless influencers pushing goods and services they were "invited", "collaborated with" with no advertising disclaimers, and they lap it up leaving streams of positive comments.
I know plenty of “regular” people saying “f this, it’s all ads, can’t even find anything anymore!”