zlacker

>>smnrg+(OP)
Sao Paulo, Brazil, made outdoor advertising illegal. That worked out quite well.

The US used to forbid prescription drug advertising. That seemed to work.

Ads for liquor, marijuana, and gambling are prohibited in many jurisdictions.

The FCC once limited the number of minutes of ads per hour on the public airwaves. That limit was below 10% of air time in the 1960s.

The SEC used to limit ads for financial products to dull "tombstone" ads, which appeared mostly in the Wall Street Journal.

A useful restriction might be to make advertising non tax deductible as a business expense. That encourages putting value into cost of goods sold rather than marketing.

>>Animat+le
It's illegal here in Canberra, Australia. There's not total compliance -- people still stick an A-frame on the street, and of course real estate agents will always put something in a front lawn -- but there aren't giant billboards that you see everywhere else. It's really refreshing.