dirkz - 12:53 pm on Sep 21, 2004 (gmt 0)

> The "Google owes nothing to anyone except the surfer" line of argument has had its day, I believe.

Of course they owe nothing to the webmasters. But in the surfer's interest they should equally level the playing field for webmasters.

There'll always be extremes: Webmaster that'd never violate the guidelines and the ones that will do it on every occasion. But if the undecided majority in the middle sees that it pays off and bears no risk, SERPs won't get better.