There has been numerous discussions (re:rants) about ad farms and other annoying forms of advertising on SL that, as a community initiative, in-game advertising on SL should have rules and regulations applied to it as it is in real life.
As gambling had to be abolished from SL before real world regulations could be applied to it (and thereby cause an infinity of headaches), there should be some form of game-imposed regulation imposed on advertising before someone decided that real life regulation needs to be applied to it.
To abolish it would be detrimental, but there is a need to limit it reasonable levels. I proposed several ideas that would allow advertising to exist at a functional and tolerable level to all players:
1) advertising has to be connected to the land that it is on if it can be viewed from other parcels. This means that ads need to be connected to the ground by an unbroken set of normal, not huge prims. If the advertising is not connected to the ground, then it must be enclosed by a structure to allow the advertisement to be viewed only from that parcel.
2) advertising cannot emit messages beyond it's parcel's boundaries.
3) parcels devoted SPECIFICALLY to advertising (IE: ad farms) must always be for sale.
4) advertising must conform to the behavioral standards and use of the majority of the sim. A residential sim should not have overly bright-light source ads that would ruin the effect of a residence. A shopping sim that catered to non-adult products should not have ads advertising "adult" products or services, etc. Basically, advertising should "fit in" with the environment.
5) advertising must conform to the esthetic, construction, and scenic standards. Basically, the advertisements should "fit in" with the sim they are in.
The exceptions to this are ads that advertise the service or description of the business contained on the parcel that can be viewed outside of the parcel.
As it would be a community effort to have such regulations added to the TOS, and enforced, and that such a regulation/enforcement would be controversial to some, I request intelligent feedback on this proposal. Advertising is a needed and required function and resource in this game, but a limit has to be imposed on it to keep it form becoming a detriment.