Sightings of new Adsense unit similar to Widgetbucks

As I do my daily blog hopping (and dropping of entrecards at the same time), an article on Problogger caught my attention. A new interactive Adsense unit was reported to have been spotted on several sites.



















The picture above was seen on a UK site- Technical Itch. Seems like Google has begun testing new adsense formats that will compete with other popular shopping widgets like Widgetbucks and Chitika's eMinimall. Another test ad was also spotted on freakitude.com.

The widget, i mean gadget, has the usual "Ads by Google" on the right side, and a link with the words "Add the Google Checkout gadget" on the left side. Does this mean ads displayed will only come from sellers of Google's Checkout service, not Adwords? There's actually a gadget similar to this, called "Shop with Google Checkout," which you can only add to your personalized iGoogle homepage.

So, has anyone else seen these test ads? What's your say with this new adsense unit? Do you think Google will still allow publishers to display third party shopping widgets once they officially launch this ad format?

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technorati tags: google, adsense, google gadget ads,google checkout gadget ads