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Misleading ads have not made people jaded. Advertising ITSELF has made people jaded.

Misleading advertising has been with us for as long as commerce. In thirteenth-century London a Baker's Guild was formed to enforce rules against selling short-weight loaves and adding foreign matter to flour, and enforcing price guidelines based on the cost of wheat.

Going further back, the Code of Hammurabi from around 1760 BC had specific penalties for tradesmen whose goods (houses, boats, etc.) failed to perform. Depending on the loss caused by these failures, the penalties could include death.

These ancient laws clearly show consumers have dealt with false product claims going way, way back. Laws are written AFTER an infraction, and rarely in anticipation of one, so obviously false advertising is an age-old practice.

The newly overwhelming and jading phenomenon is advertising itself, which has reached overload proportions.

A NEW PHENOMENON?

No, it's an old phenomenon. Marketplaces and bazaars the world over are packed with vendors advertising their wares, often shouting at passers-bye to get their attention. Regular shoppers in these markets learn to tune out the hawkers and displays that don't have what they seek to buy. This has been going on for centuries.

That's the phenomenon we have today, but it's non-stop we're in the bazaar all the time. T.V., radio, internet, billboard, circular, junk mail and email, and soon to come advertising on your cell phone have put us into the marketplace every waking hour.

We don't register most of it. There's so much advertising, in so many places, that we pay little attention to it. Unless it's something we want to buy.

So advertisers look for new venues that will surprise consumers and catch their attention. They look for new media and new presentations that will draw in customers. They want to entice people into the market for their product, not just draw customers away from their competitors, and the ads have become brighter, splashier, livelier, and more frequent.

But the competitors are doing it too. We are truly in advertising overload.

BUT THE FALSE ADS, WHAT ABOUT THEM?

False advertisers face the same challenges that legitimate ones do getting the public attention. Often, it's the public's indifference to advertising that CAUSES the false advertising. In their drive to catch the attention of a jaded public, they make inflated claims.

But cases of false advertising rarely enter into

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