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I don't see it as much different than "smart" vandalism.
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well, in some ways it isn't.
obviously, anyone's position on this is not free-standing--it is of a piece with broader political and aesthetic positions. if you are politically inclined to find strategies of branding to be hunky dory, then you probably won't be doing this kind of action in any event. the questions that follow from this statement in your post all lean on your political commitments.
if i or anyone else doesn't share those commitments, then they are all moot, really.
for example, you might argue that the space a particular advertiser purchases access to is private--but what is placed there impacts on public space. if it didn't, it wouldn't be there: the point is to impact on a public which passes, and so advertisement is designed to intrude on space that is NOT owned. so you have a question of the rights of an advertiser to intrude on public space from a position that is in itself privately owned as over against the right of the public to not be intruded upon. whether someone chooses to invoke this conflict or to act on the basis of it or not is a political question in general---as it the right to ownership itself, if you think about it---but whether someone chooses to act on the basis of such an argument is more or less random (unpredictable)
i figure you put the adverts up you take your chances.
i have no problem at all with defacing such---i just personally am so constructed that i think of good ideas after i've seen a potential target and usually forget about the whole thing before i act. i think it's good that others are differently wired.
it's not like any of these actions if going to bring about revolution--it's just nice to see advertising made into a political act by having political actions taken against particular examples.