I don't know where you were the past few years but as far as I remember the "ads by google" was always there, it just wasn't a visual banner, it was a text banner. As I said in the other post, I could care less because I do believe that bandwidth and domain licencing costs suck significantly more and I sympathize with the site owner. The banner itself is about 90px. If you keep your browser open at any reasonable resolution, this should not intrude on your viewing to any significant level.
