rohitj - 5:08 pm on Jul 3, 2006 (gmt 0)

In my mind, most arms races every participant is a loser. To say Google wins or loses and talking about this as an Arms race, is getting away from reality.

The reality, in my mind, is that Google is trying constantly to make their service better and more effective at fighting spam. The question is at what point are you satisfied with spam--when 99% is elminiated or 99.9%? Its not going to reach a 100% but it could get to 99.9999%. For most of us, it wouldn't make a difference at that point but if you're a major search engine trying to get a competitive edge, you're going to keep pushing the R&D expenses. In my mind, that's a situation where every party involved loses (end-users may be better off if that R&D expense was spent elsewhere etc.,) and thus the analogy of the arms race is applicable.