Yes, placing a newspaper ad is a requirement. I think the primary criticisms are the incomprehensible ad and the selection of newspapers itself.

This is normally called Malicious Compliance - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malicious_compliance - where someone meets the requirements, not the intent. Maybe both the intent and the requirements should be spelled out more specifically but the players involved - large tech companies and legislators - don't have an interest in that.