Oops a little more waffle left in me on this one.. The reasons to oppose regulation are pretty well laid out in the network2 petition. I imagine the 'US leads way, good for US economy' stuff is overstated because thats a standard argument to use in such rallies against regulation, although its also true, though nobody quite knows how much real economic worth such things have yet.
Reasons to support regulation include the protection against consumers being mislead by advertising beyond the currently acceptable amount. Personally Id rather have strong regulation to discourage all sorts of unsavioury and exploitative business practice, although Im well aware that this can have many negative implications. As a consumer I want protection against subliminal advertising, I want clear information about sponsorship info, I want the advert and the program to have clear seperation. Granted I am a cynic who would have no more confidence in a voluntary code of uncorruptable bloggers than I would in any other voluntary code that is created by traditional industry to try to stave off real legislation that has teeth. But where does this stance lead to? Amanda Congdon is now in various DuPont adverts on the internets, at least I know they are adverts, I dont want to live in a future world where its impossible to know whats an advert and whats a show. Still as an Englishman Im not too sure of my own stance here so maybe I stand even less chance of any citizens of the USA joining me if any of that stuff about the free market and deregulation that gets spouted over there is actually believed by the multitude and not just the few with access to the traditonal quack amplifier. Lets see if at least 27 years of loud 'big government is evil' rhetoric will enable sadvertisers to get away with more in a deregulated wonderworld of the future. I hear theres a flat tax in Iraq now, wooo lucky Iraqi's, not. Cheers Steve Elbows
