on the new revised adsense policies, we are allowed to publish any ads (contextual, non contextual, inline) as long as we make them look different. take note even menu of the site should not look like adsense just like what others do.
To be honest, this makes it even trickier. Where is the line between ads that blend in and ads that "imitate" the menu or content? I once received a warning from google, because my ads seemed to imitate the neighboring content, never mind that millions do it and it was just meant to blend in nicely and not to stand out and shout "it's an ad!!". for example, inline ads are blue and double underlined, does it mean google links cannot be blue then? btw, has anyone actually emailed adsense and asked about the inline ads directly?