Marketing: The internet fools the law

In Germany and the EU, marketing is seriously regulated. Competitors cannot freely compare each other's products and performance, as they are strictly and tidily regulated. If companies step out of the rules, competitors come after them with defamation cases and potentially heavy fines.

U.S. laws encourage companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi to crack jokes about each other's products and performance, creating a certain Pop culture around marketing. Defamations in the form of lies are strictly forbidden.

Markets are different, so the perception of consumers about products, services and their marketing of them. Consumers shift away from posters and commercials on TV to online streaming. The internet is a global reality. Unless blocked by countries like North Korea completely, it and its content are freely accessible to consumers and users. Despite regulations on certain topics, the internet generation finds easy ways around them. Exciting marketing campaigns go viral in a split second, recommended from user to user. Algorithms make these campaigns even more widespread.

What is legally produced under national law can be added to the internet on a live stream. It can be seen by any internet user around the globe. While before the internet national laws could perform well and effectively in the world we live in today, this is no longer the case. To create a world in which all nations in all aspects cooperate in common agreement is a nightmare no one would wish to live in. Cultural and value differences on some aspects of life make the world a better place for all.

Marketing and Freedom of Speech are classic examples of the conflict between a free internet based on fundamentals like the fight against child pornography, drug and human trafficking, hate speech/terrorism, among others and the differences in national laws under which certain content is legal in one jurisdiction while not in others.

In the face of internet laws which cannot be inforced are like a shell empty of its content, about to be crushed by time and turned into crude oil. Parties involved and affected must find another set of rules to deal with each other and the content for which they stand.