Great question, just as good as the "can we put image ads next to text ads?" one that I saw a while back. This may be best directed at The G itself, but in my opinion (insert standard disclaimer) I would think it would be okay. I mean, how stupid to you have to be to think that the map is representative of something you could buy at the site advertised next to it. I'm imagining some frazzled looking guy staring at the page the ad brought up saying something like "Man, that site lied, I can't buy Connecticut here" That being said, there is the other caveat that has to be addressed, that being the one about bringing undue attention to the ads.....
i think you must be careful. think this you have a new york map and there are new york related ads near this map. this may be against the tos
I'm not sure where the "misleading" would come in in that situation, though. A map is somewhat different than a typical image as far as what it conveys to the user. My concern would be if it had a big fat "YOU ARE HERE" in red with an arrow that happened to point to the ads What could be misleading? Well, I suppose the possibility might be that "Gianni's Pizza and Pasta" showed up as a label on the map, one of the ads was for "Restaurants in New York" and the person who clicked that ad went to a site that did not list a review or menu for Gianni's? Like I said, this looks like a job for G-FORCE.