sniffer - 2:44 pm on May 17, 2010 (gmt 0)

The older I get, the more I come to realize that "ad blindness" infects other areas, some of them important, and people have become blind to nearly anything on a page except for exactly what they are looking for. This includes any of the "badges" of credibility/reliability, even SSL cert thingies. If I'm looking for widgets and the page contains anything but widgets, I'm blind to it.

yeah, I agree

It's not necessary. Establish trust by your own means, not by third party.