Oh nice. I hope other countries follow suit. It’s quite a shame Google didn’t get Chrome divested from them in the US, would’ve been a “nature is healing” moment for the web.
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The healing will be when all ads and marketing will be down to zero. This companies like Facebook and Google make their billions putting on your face what you don't want or need and someone else pays them good money for that.
You may think it's too radical but we must make marketing illegal. Then fix the web.
I've given some thought to this, and outright banning marketing sounds basically impossible. Not just from a "good luck getting that bill passed" sense, but in a practical one. Where do you draw the line on "marketing"? Presumably my writing a glowing review of a product I like won't be banned, and online banner ads will. I'm not trying to make a "the line is blurry therefore no regulation can happen" argument, rather I think "marketing" isn't really the right line. Specifically, what ought to be banned is the sale of attention. Anything where money or favors are changing hands in order to direct attention intentionally to your product, service, etc. So you can absolutely have a marketing page extolling the virtues of your brand. You cannot pay to have that page shoved in front of people's eyeballs.
Yes, I know that this kills the ad-based funding of the current internet. Let it burn. A mix of community-run free services and commercial paid services is infinitely preferable to the "free" trash we've grown dependent on.
To make an ethical argument: quantifying and selling human attention is gross anyway. Some things just don't belong on a market.
I had a decent idea. Not that it's easily practical, but it's more practical than other solutions.
Major problem today is information asymmetry. Google giving you free YouTube videos is front and center. Google paying for it by linking your location and this and that fingerprint from here and there is hidden in whitewashed language 3 settings menus deep. Many things are hidden in bottom right of a billboard in fine print, t&c fine prints, etc,.
What I propose is the law making sure that all information about the product that you intend to or are forced to by regulation to make public, public in the same measure. That is, if you're going to advertise "coca cola, open happiness" you also need to have in the same fontsize "39g of sugar" right next to it. Similarly google search bar needs to say what info of yours helped serve the ads you see, right next to the content paid for by those ads.
If you're going to hide less palatable stuff in your t&c, then marketing logos slogans all become illegal for you. And all information even positive ones must also be in fontsize8 t&c fine print.
Real estate ads can't put *artists impression at the bottom right of their ad in fine print, it has to be as big as the main tagline.
You get the idea. What I gave are just examples, slight variations of the idea that still focus on information symmetry as the main goal, will also work.