Sven Slootweg<p>Did you know: JCDecaux and Clear Channel are advertising companies, not infrastructure companies.</p><p>The reason you see them everywhere is because they have contracts with many municipalities; they pay for and maintain city infrastructure (bus stops, trash bins, benches, etc.) and in exchange they get exclusive advertising rights in many locations. They operate throughout Europe, and probably elsewhere.</p><p>These contracts typically come with steep cancellation fines, and are a major reason why political efforts to ban advertising in public spaces often goes nowhere; if the local government were to go through with that, they would immediately have a large cancellation fine and infrastructure bill to pay.</p><p>Often, (part of) these contracts are publicly available; consult the public infrastructure agreements and documents for your local government, and do a FOIA or equivalent request if necessary. This should tell you exactly how they are keeping your local government under their thumb.</p><p><a href="https://social.pixie.town/tags/FuckAds" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>FuckAds</span></a></p>