Adsense Beautifier - against Google Adsense TOS?!

This is a major development in Google Adsense implementation. I think, most blogs that I've seen need to check their Adsense implementation because they might be violating the TOS. Inside Adsense recently discussed about placing images near your ads. Most people says it's okay as long as there is a border between the image and the ads. Someone even made a Wordpress plug-in for it and called it Adsense beautifier. But hey, look at this development. Kindly read the latest stand of Google Adsense when it comes to placing images near your ads. Here is an excerpt:

Can I place small images next to my Google ads?

We ask that publishers not line up images and ads in a way that suggests a relationship between the images and the ads. If your visitors believe that the images and the ads are directly associated, or that the advertiser is offering the exact item found in the neighboring image, they may click the ad expecting to find something that isn't actually being offered. That's not a good experience for users or advertisers.

Publishers should also be careful to avoid similar implementations that people could find misleading. For instance, if your site contains a directory of Flash games, you should not format the ads to mimic the game descriptions.

What if I place a space or a line between my images and my ads? Would that work?

No. If the ads and the images appear to be associated, inserting a small space or a line between the images and ads will not make the implementation compliant.

Read the full entry here. On the full entry, you can see an example of an implementation which violates the TOS, including an "ad-near-image" placement similar to Adsense Beautifier:



So, is Adsense Beautifier against the TOS? I think, it's obvious. Better play safe than sorry.