Guys, as I remember fancy border/background around ads isn't allowed, I'm not sure though, but a site offering these says it's approved by google... so it's allowed or not?
Well, it depends if by having a fancy "click here, pointing arrows" sort of fancy border/background, then it's not allowed. Another thing is, you can't have images right beside your ads. Basically, anything that may mislead your visitor into clicking the ad is not allowed. As for a regular border/background, I think it's fine just as long as it's not misleading in anyway. But you should e-mail google just to make sure .
I would say that if the border/background was consistent with the rest of you site's design, then it would be fine. If it was something that made the ad stand out too much, then probably not. Remember, the intent of all of these rules makes is to make sure you are being fair to the advertisers. If you think "how can I trick my visitors" you are doing something wrong.
The borders aren't something to mislead visitors to click the ads, instead they just make adsense prettier, something like here adsensebackgrounds.com (not my site). I'd like to know your opinion and maybe if you have some experience about this, I'll probably email google when implement this, but you know, sometimes they have different answer from different support person, while in that site stated it has been approved (if they're not lying though ).
can u tell us here what is the site? so that we can have more clear idea about what u mean by fancy borders, bachgrpund