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Advertising is a cancer on modern society. Not only it messes the psyche of individuals, it also ties businesses in wasteful arms races. We need more than education, the industry needs to be reined in with a regulatory hammer.

Hypnotism is banned in UK television. Advertisment is not that far off from hypnotism, and needs to face similar consequences. Promote your product all you want, but don't exploit human pyscology to manipulate people into doing what you want.

On the Internet, it's a literal attack on your machine (slows the page down, incurs extra bandwidth, and can inject malware). :D

TV commercials back in tha day didn't have any of that, although nowadays they can play ultrasonic sounds that apps on your phone listen for to facilitate analytic tracking.[0]

0: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/beware-of-ads-th...

That may be, but my understanding of the comment you are replying to is that it is non-advertising techniques which are distasteful.

> manufacturing “3rd-party grass roots” support

...is effectively trying to achieve advertising goals outside advertising channels using deception - astroturfing, etc.