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Since when is deceptive advertising free speech?

Advertising Is Protected by the First Amendment. ... However, advertising or "commercial speech" enjoys somewhat less First Amendment protection from governmental encroachment than other types of speech. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), for example, may regulate speech that is found to be "deceptive."

For commercial speech. That is not, however, other speech, and political speech is the most protected of all, even lying, lest the government become the arbiter of truth in politics.

Even commercial speech is butting agajnst the First Amendment, with cases being thrown out where government attempts to silence people who don't have a license in this or that industry, like the non-P.E. engineer commenting online about some crappy bridge or something, or someone giving vaguely medical advice in a discussion forum.

Since when is deceptive advertising free speech?

Advertising Is Protected by the First Amendment. ... However, advertising or "commercial speech" enjoys somewhat less First Amendment protection from governmental encroachment than other types of speech. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), for example, may regulate speech that is found to be "deceptive."

http://www.lawpublish.com/amen...

Advertising Is Protected by the First Amendment
The question is often asked: Does the First Amendment protect advertisements? Advertising is indeed protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. However, advertising or "commercial speech" enjoys somewhat less First Amendment protection from governmental encroachment than other types of speech. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), for example, may regulate speech that is found to be "deceptive."

What part of "well fucking regulated" don't you understand?

Which part of "petitioning the government for redress of grievances" don't you understand, citizen?

By your own logic, you don't have a right to any other speech — not to advertise anything, not to produce pornography, not to organize boycotts. Not even political campaign speeches are a right under your reading of the Bill of Rights — unless they are addressed to the sitting government as a form of a petition. If, of course, your thinking is self-consistent, and you are reading the First Amendment with the same literal strictness you are applying to the Second.

And by the logic of others of your kind, your Constitutionally-protected speech is limited to the means available in the 18th century too — even if you are merely petitioning the government, you don't have a right to do that via the Internet, TV, or radio.

According to http://www.lawpublish.com/amend1.html, commercial speech is protected by the 1st amendment, but to a lesser degree than non-commercial speech:

"In Central Hudson, the Supreme Court set out the important four-part test for assessing government restrictions on commercial speech:

'[First] . . . [the commercial speech] at least must concern lawful activity and not be misleading. Next, we ask whether the asserted governmental interest is substantial. If both inquiries yield positive answers, we must determine whether the regulation directly advances the governmental interest asserted, and whether it is not more extensive than is necessary to serve that interest.'"

Almost all spammers will fail the first test, including the waste of skin from the article. There is no such thing as a legitimate spammer.

Really? Advertising isn't protected under the first amendment?

That's news to me. It'd be news to a lawyer too. Enlighten thyself. And mods, let's try not to mark patently false statements as +1, Insightful.

Shoot.. The distinctions are in this link..

If I had to guess, it falls under laws designed to prohibit subliminal advertising. Unfortunately, my cursory Google search failed to find anything specifically prohibiting what you're describing; the most I could find was an FCC document describing subliminal advertising on TV as "clearly intended to be deceptive" and presumably therefore prohibited; this, if I had to guess, applies neither to cinematic films nor to simple brown spots on the film (the way I read it seems to require an intent to convey a message via subliminal perception).

While I was looking it up, though, I did find a good article on the development of subliminal advertising and its limitations.

By strange coincidence, Ralph Nader's total number of votes in the US in 2000 was 2,864,810. This means that for every Naderite, there's a person in jail.

I wonder if we'll see large budget adware games in the future. Considering the 400billion to Trillion[1] dollar expenditures on direct and indirect advertising along with the increased popularity of ad-blocking software and consumer electronics, creative --foolhardy?-- ad producers might see piggyback ads as a way to micro-target consumers.

Some modern ad examples: Kazaa makes (millions) off of their file sharing service. We see product placement ads in movies Happy Gilmore (Subway sandwitch), tv shows Drew Carey(Aqua Java drink) nowadays. Some oneline chat (MMORPG) "There.com" (Levis/Nike)

Former FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky projected online advertising revenue to projected to increase. From 3E8$ to 2E9$ to 11 billion dollars by 2003[2]. If advertisers aren't seeing good returns from banner ads, they might after making their "ads" more entertaining by bundling some entertainment... =)
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[1]COMMUNICATION FROM THE UNITED STATES: Advertising and Related Services (2001 July). World Trade Organization notes (?)
[2]Opening Remarks, FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky, Public Workshop on Online Profiling, November 8, 1999. Volume XIX. Issue 22. November 15, 1999. Page 5-8. [see hyperlink]. --the linked article is some sort of critque of Pitosfsky's policies.

Nope -- at least not in the States.

That's neither trademark nor copyright.

Hey, that was almost interesting, wasn't it? :)