Amazon puts ads in people's baby registries
twitter.com
twitter.com
> Company places ad in the service
> Ad marked with "Sponsored"
> User is surprised, angry
There has been plenty of discussion about google and amazon's less than obvious marking of ads, but how can this guy be surprised? If you found competitors that offer a service you like better, go use them.
Really is a dark pattern. Especially given that the purpose of the list is to avoid unwanted/unneeded items. The user is already doing the work of directing purchases to your platform already.
Not cool.
If this is not shady, I don't know what is.
They can easily create a section called "You friend might also like:" and show sponsored items there.