In Space Digest V16 #487,

...about the protests over proposals to put a giant billboard into orbit,



Mr. Hathaway's post is right on the money, if a little lengthy.  In short,
an orbiting billboard would be trash, in the same way that a billboard on
the Earth is trash.  Billboards make a place look trashy.  That is why there
are laws in many places prohibiting their use.  The light pollution
complaints are mainly an attempt to find some tangible reason to be against
orbiting billboards because people don't feel morally justified to complain
on the grounds that these things would defile the beauty of the sky.

Regular orbiting spacecraft are not the same in this respect, since they are
more like abstract entities, but a billboard in space would be like a beer
can somebody had thrown on the side of the road: just trash.