[potatolicious]

The main problem here IMHO is that, like other in-text ad providers, there is no separation between real links and ad links. As a content producer this means I really can't use inline text links ever again - it will just cause confusion and frustration for my users. For consumers it's the loss of a valuable and oft-used feature.

Have you considered an icon like what Wikipedia uses to mark external links? It would go a long way to establish user trust if ad links were clearly labeled as such (without having to find out after mousing over) - different color, iconography... something.

"We're okay with Google scanning our personal emails to serve relevant ads on Gmail"

Because Google doesn't mix ads in with our email text. The ads stay in a limited area of the screen where they are clearly marked as ads, and never stray. There's no chance that I'll get sold flowers or exercise equipment when I read my email.

People are against this in the same way they are against product placement in movies - it reeks of dishonesty, and compromises the authenticity and integrity of the content in which it was inserted. To be honest, I do not believe you have done anything (that we can see from this demo) to significantly improve on this. You've made a somewhat less scummy implementation, but you have not fixed the broken model underneath.

Sometimes I wonder what's so insufficient about Google's format: well-targeted ads, relevant to the contents of the page, served in a fenced-off ad area. Why is it that we must invade the main body of articles?