> What is an ad, exactly? You cite Consumer Reports as a model - they have affiliate links on their reviews. Is that an ad?
I agree that Consumer Reports does include some advertising, but it's not necessary for their business model to work--consumer reports predated the internet by over 50 years, so it certainly predated affiliate links. At least at some points their primary source of income was subscriptions, and judging by how hard it is to get at most of their reviews without a subscription, that continues to be a significant revenue stream for them.
> Is a sponsored social media post? A celebrity endorsement? Free products given to athletes in the hopes that they will be seen using it? Logos on clothing? Is the standard just "I know it when I see it"?
While I agree that we need a clear definition of an ad to encode this to law, I don't buy this feigned confusion as a valid argument that we can't or shouldn't legislate against ads. Obviously we need to work out a clearer definition than "I know it when I see it" to legislate effectively, but it's absurd to claim that I need to present a fully-written legal code in order to present a valid opinion on Hacker News.
We may disagree about free products given to athletes in the hopes that they'll be seen wearing them, for example. But if you claim not to know that a 30 second video clip in the middle of your TV show telling you that you should drink Budweiser to pick up chicks is both an ad and a harmful lie, you're not arguing in good faith. This argument is just throwing FUD about implementation details: you're not responding in any way to my statement of the problem, or presenting any fundamental criticism of my proposed solution.
The first implementation of this law wouldn't be perfect. We'd need to iterate on it. But even a ban against a very narrow definition of ads would be extremely beneficial.
Since you haven't even disagreed with my statement of the problem, perhaps you agree that advertising is bad, and would like to draft some sample legislation that solves that problem to your satisfaction?
> Also (in the US) it almost certain runs afoul of the First Amendment.
While current judicial precedent defines corporations as people, that's clearly a terrible mistake. Corporations aren't people and as such the first amendment does not apply to them. Yes, I know, there's some grey area where restricting the rights of corporations might restrict the rights of individuals: remember what I said about implementation details?
Overturning judicial precedent is a legal hurdle to get over to get rid of advertising, but it isn't a logical problem with the solution. Just because something is difficult to do doesn't mean it's not worth doing.