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I’m gonna need a citation on this one … if this were true then it seems by definition the little ads atop my search results advertising — you guessed it, TVs — would also be illegal. Yet there they are.
They have to be labelled as ads. The model can’t just ‘happen’ to recommend you a Samsung TV, it has to give its regular answer and then, maybe if it mentions a Samsung TV (but there’s no guarantee it will, and whether it does can’t be based on a commercial relationship with Google) they can serve a banner ad next to the answer for it. But this is less lucrative because it’s less predictable, the advertiser has to hope the model organically recommends their products OR accept that it won’t and serve their ads next to relevant prompts anyway, which is much less useful than the current dynamic where serving ads under a ‘best TV $500’ search query sells them the TV before they consider whether there are better options.
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It's not illegal if it's clearly identified as an ad, or at least if it's obvious enough that any reasonable person would know it's an ad. Here's a primer from the FTC if you have any further questions:
https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/native-advertising-guide-businesses
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