europeforvisitors - 7:28 pm on Mar 8, 2007 (gmt 0)

Running the SERPS and their other interests , froogle et al, is fine BUT being in direct competition with their publishers is another thing altogether.

This may seem like an obvious question, but why did you sign up with AdSense if that bothered you? Surely you must have noticed those ads on Google SERPs before you submitted your application.

We do seem to get the dregs while the serp advertising gets the cream of the crop. How's that for fair?

It seems to me that your beef should be with advertisers who choose to avoid the content network, not with Google (especially since Google has taken any number of steps to encourage advertisers to use the content network).