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Comment by mLuby | Hacker News Reader

A/B testing to the rescue!

    A (control): rate of purchases of the item WITHOUT the ad present.
    B (experiment): rate of purchases of the item WITH the ad present.

If A and B differ significantly then by definition the ad manipulates purchasers. And we all know companies track exactly these metrics, ripe for subpoena.

(Separate question is whether this practice is bad for consumers; I'd argue "not all ads are bad" and "no ads is never bad" so to minimize harm, we should adopt "ads are bad until proven otherwise.")

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Yes, that works with ads, but the person I replied to was referencing any form of manipulation. Because what counts as manipulation? I referenced two examples of things that average consumers do, but generally wouldn't say they've been "manipulated" to do so.

And that's before you even get into the question of "what is an ad?" and "are all ads bad?" (which you mention) Because promo videos for things such as video games are common, but I wouldn't call them ads (per se). Are music singles ads for the whole album? Historically, music videos were called "promo videos" because their intent was: "we air this on MTV or the FM radio so that people will buy the album." Am I being advertised to there? Maybe? But what if I end up finding a new band I like?

You can't define this cleanly.

Manipulation requires intent and action:

    "I believe they won't do B unless I do A, so I do A."

"I believe they won't do B unless I do A" on its own is harmless—there's no action.

"I do A" on its own is unintentional. Does anyone really act without intent?

Legal systems have (imperfect) ways to ascertain intent (AKA premeditation), causality, and harm, so they can deal with the concept of manipulation.

This would outlaw advertising that is effective then, since the entire goal of an advertisement is to maximize the difference between A and B. So to do any advertising you'd have to prove it wasn't very effective? Sounds similar to types of proposed gun regulation: "your guns can kill people, just not too many too fast too effectively"

Not that that means it's necessarily a bad approach, just never heard of marketing being limited by its effectiveness. Similar to having to put those gross pictures on cigarette packages now.

Not quite: effective (AKA manipulative) advertisement would be fine if you can show the behavior the advertisement causes isn't detrimental. Advertising a new treatment for some disease is a net positive; advertising cigarettes is not.

I'm really just suggesting we flip the burden of proof from harmed consumers to advertising companies.

Nice approach. To extend on this, I wish we could scientifically determine how much overconsumption is caused by advertising, and hence how much unnecessary damage to the planet.

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