We need legal controls on web advertising
If we know that humans have all sorts of cognitive biases, how come it&#x27;s ok to use that fact while at the same time we insist there&#x27;s some kind of free market?<p>Say you discover that putting good-looking women next to cars causes the sale of cars to increase. Why does nobody question whether it is legitimate to do so? It&#x27;s as if there&#x27;s a line between actively lying (&quot;Studies show that men who buy this car will find many many women attracted to them&quot;) and just putting it there suggestively, for some as yet undescribed but working cognitive bias to do its magic.<p>Some advertisers even make a joke out of it, eg the Lynx ads where the dude is thronged by a huge horde of women. It&#x27;s a cliché, for a good reason.<p>I suppose most people will just say you have free will and it&#x27;s your own fault for thinking what was suggested, but I sense this is more of a grey zone than most people are willing to admit. How can the free market work if everyone is so easily affected by suggestion?