kaled - 4:16 pm on Dec 20, 2010 (gmt 0)

It's like the police going to the home of a victim of identity fraud, posting a huge sign outside that says "this person's identity is being used by criminals", without first informing the victim.

I like that analogy but I don't think it's quite right. How about this...

It's like the police going to a shop who's card-processing system has been hacked, posting a huge sign outside that says "this shop is unsafe", without first informing the shopkeeper. (Of course, in the real world, the shopkeeper would at least see the sign.)

In my comment above, I ommited a fourth option available to Google...
4) Index the real page and dump the cloaked/spam version.

That would remove the motivation for such attacks. If Google also attempted to contact the webmaster, that would be helpful. Have I missed something? Can anyone find fault with this solution?

Kaled.