signor_john - 3:26 pm on Dec 18, 2008 (gmt 0)

Could this be the beginning of the end of search rankings as we now know them?

Search is Google's core business, so it seems unlikely that they'd hand over control of their SERPs to users and SEOs.

Also, wouldn't it be great if publishers could see a list of ads that appear on our sites and rank as "Promote" or "Remove"?

Sounds like a lot of work. Google might prefer that publishers spend their time building new pages (a.k.a. more places where Google can display ads).