To be fair, it was a giant yellow box that gave an explanation of the words "sponsor content" when you hovered over it. Also the box isn't always yellow or that big, sometimes it's light tan, small and blends into the page; so they at least attempted to make it more noticeable in this instance. Not saying they should have put the ad up, for obvious reasons, but people need to pay attention to what they're reading as well.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/files/2013/0...

Pop Up Message: "Sponsor content is created by The Atlantic’s Promotions Department in partnership with our advertisers. The Atlantic editorial team is not involved in the creation of this content. Email [email protected] to learn more."

http://www.poynter.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/sponsorcon...

I wonder if this would have even been an issue if it wasn't an article about Scientology, especially since this style of advertising has been happening on that site for at least the last two years and elsewhere since newspapers have been in existence.

When I first visited it, it was a plain white text box at the end of the article.

In this interpretation, those reading are both attuned to font and layout consisitencies between pages and oblivious to the content of what they're reading. I disagree.

So long as there's reasonable transparency, I'd give readers, especially, a bit more credit and latitude here. IMO, the "sponsor content" label is reasonable transparency.

When I read "sponsor content", I read "paid advertising". I don't think it's "bullshit" to say that this is clearly marked as advertising.

Perhaps I can spot this more easily than you can, I don't know.