Website Penalization is depend on many factors not just only paid links. If you a limited paid links with relevant sites, and valuable sites, then not to worry for penalize. If you do it in excessive manner, definitely punished by google.
I think that Google doesn't like excessive paid links. It tough to say what the Google algorithm is doing. But depending on the industry, having a few paid links could be a quality factor to sort out the MFA sites.
I agree. Right now, I'm still link building my websites, but I become paranoid that one bad step and I'll mess all the hard work I've done for the past few months. Yes, I think Google only wants "old-fashioned" advertisement-type of links. As long as the links are legit, and are from good quality websites, it should be fine. They do not oppose paid links, they just don't want people to become link farmers or link sellers.
Yes, Google dont like paid links. But google will penalize when they some how find out that there are some paid links