5 ms·

I think you only need to track financial transactions, advertising companies would have to report and be taxed on income. The government has shown moderate comp

I think you only need to track financial transactions, advertising companies would have to report and be taxed on income. The government has shown moderate competence at being able to implement things like this (maybe there are some areas where there is a lot of tax fraud, but generally it works). It is an interesting question you raise about second order effects-- would there be ways to work around this to get advertising for free?. For example maybe spam would become more common and intrusive and be used by more reputable companies. Note that ideas such as "hashcash" were solutions to effectively put a fee on email spam. The root of what is troubling about this all is that free speech isn't a sufficient framework in the modern world where attention and time are constrained.

r00fus 4y ago
How do you separate advertisement companies and, say, entertainment companies that happen to just do product placement? I'm in favor of taxing ads, but it'd need to be comprehensive definition unless you want some unintended consequences.
- vlovich123 4y ago
  Product placement is advertising. You only need to tax the transaction for the advertisement not “advertising companies”. It does get more complicated about how you define that it’s an advertisement vs not. And there’s lots of “paid placement” stories even in “respectable” newspapers that masquerade as news but would be hard to pierce the veil on as advertisement instead of just “free speech”
  - sterlind 4y ago
    you don't have to pierce the veil. the newspaper is still free to publish whatever content it wants, including ads. it just has to pay a tax if it wants to accept money for it. I would word the law very generally: an X% sales tax on any transaction made in exchange for publishing, or increasing the visibility of, content supplied by the payer. this covers Facebook promoted posts, fake editorial articles, search ads, even NPR ad spots and YouTuber sponsors. it wouldn't affect product reviewers taking bribes from companies, unless the companies actually supplied review drafts. sadly, this probably falls afoul of Citizens United, which was about the legality of ad money.

r00fus 4y ago

How do you separate advertisement companies and, say, entertainment companies that happen to just do product placement? I'm in favor of taxing ads, but it'd need to be comprehensive definition unless you want some unintended consequences.

vlovich123 4y ago
Product placement is advertising. You only need to tax the transaction for the advertisement not “advertising companies”. It does get more complicated about how you define that it’s an advertisement vs not. And there’s lots of “paid placement” stories even in “respectable” newspapers that masquerade as news but would be hard to pierce the veil on as advertisement instead of just “free speech”
- sterlind 4y ago
  you don't have to pierce the veil. the newspaper is still free to publish whatever content it wants, including ads. it just has to pay a tax if it wants to accept money for it. I would word the law very generally: an X% sales tax on any transaction made in exchange for publishing, or increasing the visibility of, content supplied by the payer. this covers Facebook promoted posts, fake editorial articles, search ads, even NPR ad spots and YouTuber sponsors. it wouldn't affect product reviewers taking bribes from companies, unless the companies actually supplied review drafts. sadly, this probably falls afoul of Citizens United, which was about the legality of ad money.