Danny Sullivan writes on Search Engine land:
"Google, the company that has been fighting against paid links and “thin” content, seems to be behind a campaign that’s generating both on behalf of its Chrome browser.
Aaron Wall wrote about the campaign today at SEO Book, spotting how a search for “This post is sponsored by Google” brings back over 400 pages written apparently as part of a Google marketing campaign...
The campaign is odd in two major ways. For one, it potentially violates Google’s guidelines against paid links.
The head of Google’s web spam team, Matt Cutts, has been quite vocal that sponsored posts shouldn’t be a way for people to gain links in response for payment, that any links in such posts should use the nofollow attribute to prevent them from passing credit to Google’s ranking algorithm.
And yet here, we see one of Google’s sponsored post doing exactly that..."
Read the full article: http://searchengineland.com/googles-jaw-dropping-sponsored-post-campaign-for-chrome-106348
See the follow-up story, Google: Yes, Sponsored Post Campaign Was Ours But Not What We Signed-Up For.
Postscript 3: See Google’s Chrome Page No Longer Ranks For “Browser” After Sponsored Post Penalty