google sponsored links

Hi,

Does anyone know anything about Google sponsored links that appear at the top of search results? I'm not talking about Adwords, there's normally a couple of sites at the top no matter what page rank they have, the listings have a slightly pink background.

I guess they pick a few key words and pay a lot of money! Does anyone know how to go about doing it? Or how much it costs? I've been looking through my google account and there doesn't seem to be any info about it...

Geoff