[Charles Arthur for The Guardian][1]:

> Yet writing in December 2005, the then head of search and user experience Marissa Mayer insisted that following a tieup to provide search for AOL, that besides never providing “biased” results, “There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage or web search results pages. There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever.”
> Asked why Google had gone back on that clear promise, Google said in a statement that “We’re currently running a very limited, US-only test, in which advertisers can include an image as part of the search ads that show in response to certain branded queries.”

I love the response from Google, well the non-response. It’s the old “but *our* ads are different, and users (read: advertisers) will love them.”

[1]: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/24/google-breaks-promise-banner-ads-search-results