I know that if this was done by an Adsense publisher they'd be in hot water. I reported a few forums that intentionally made their ads look like new posts and they were admonished. So why is it OK for Google to do something that's quite a bit worse IMO?

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New Gmail Inbox Features Ads That Look Like Emails, Above Promotional Email Subscriptions
If you’ve converted to the new Gmail inbox, you may have noticed in-line ads that resemble regular emails at the top of your Promotions tab. These new native-style ads function as paid-for-placement email messages, and essentially circumvent standard email marketing practices. The ads do have a shaded background and ad symbol to differentiate them from [...]

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