i'm not sure what you mean by "fix" things on its own. around the turn of the century the US enacted some incredible policy to keep corporations in check (no child labor, anti-trust, etc). we now rely on public opinion (assuming there is some transparency and consumer advocating!) to prevent corporations from abusing lax human rights policy elsewhere.

ultimately, users are too easy to exploit. they get hit by smart advertisements from a young age. by the time they are adults they could believe anything. people put up with crap because they are trying to accomplish other goals, don't have the time to become savy, and they get used to things. it's pretty tough to change the culture against the folks controlling the culture.

there are some positive changes in recent culture. for example, more and more consumers care about fair traide and other social and environmental policies of the corporations whose products they buy. unfortunately, without transparency, we've levelled off with corporations "green washing" and mislabelling their goods (not a new tactic). the idea that consumers have the real [purchasing] power is crap in implementation.

in the end though, we're talking about scams not advertisements. that is where ethics and "crossing the line" should come into the picture. traditionally speaking, consumers have a hard time responding proactively against scams. if it weren't for consumer advocacy groups (typically non-profit, as it turns out) that help consumers take scammers to court or lobby government on behalf of consumers, then people would be screwed. that just reminded me of some scammy private insurance companies, so i think i'll stop talking here.

Never gonna happen. The more aggressive advertisers get, the more acute people's ad-blindness becomes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_blindness

There is no better classifier than the human mind; people will automatically start to filter whatever that's pushed at them .. until someone finds a new virgin technique and the cycle repeats again.

We can safely go through commercial fads without involving government or religion; the greedy will risk big money and make or lose big money, the rest of mankind goes on amused and catered to.

The problem is that this kind of advertising is basically lying to people and exploits their credulity (if they're foolish) or wastes their energy if they filter it effectively. I can't help thinking 'christ, what an asshole' when I read the guy's comment about not being proud of it - it's just more bullshit designed to market his current line of services. If Mr Yu is really not proud of it, I wish he'd put his money where his mouth is and give some of his profits to PBS or creative commons projects or suchlike. Maybe he does, but I'm afraid the whole article reminded me of 'confessions of a burglar'.

Isn't the whole point of this post that advertising is actually not a huge and successful business so you need to scam and deceive people in order to make real money?