[b]Researchers from Websense have caught Google carrying ads punting rogue software that secretly installs malware on the PCs of its users.
[/b]
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/16/google_sponsored_links/
Be careful out there.
That is not surprising to me but thanks for posting the link. marc.
I did a Google search for WinRar and did not see any of those rogue ads. 8)
Considering that on occasion, we’ll even find someone sneaking in a post on this forum
which leads to a malware site, it’s not surprising that it happens at Google.
It also happens at MS and Yahoo etc.
Here these posts are removed as soon as they are discovered and the same thing also happens
at the large search engines like Google.
It’s still happening, I just did a search for Avast and this is what I got.
To me, this is the same as Malware.
It isn’t the first time and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
For a long time people have been buying adwords to bring them up in the sponsored links, in searches with that adword/term in the search string, etc.
They have tried to stamp that out but they will always be fighting a rear guard action rather than a pro-active one. Which is why I use the CustomizeGoogle add-on, it cuts some of the trash which might contain some of this. But WOT picks up a lot as does OpenDNS if all else fails it might block the site, then there is the network shield and then the web shield, so many levels of defence.
Like Marc above, I googled avast! just to see what I would find. When I clicked the top one of the 3 sponsored link on the right side of the page, I am sent to a page for avast 4.7 which is a little out dated. Click the images below to enlarge.
(and, I feel a little slighted that the UK already has the 2009 version as shown in marc’s image & one of mine) :o 
;D