Whitey - 10:11 pm on Mar 2, 2012 (gmt 0)

My take, best to move on with strategies that serve you best, in or out.

Use the experience well and to your advantage.

Legislation to make Google more transparant and fair in the eyes of the digital economy and legislators that support the social cohesion is a long time coming. Just ask the tobacco / asbestos industry - and the conundrum surrounding control of "search" and "information" has many more twists and turns in it.

Meanwhile the social disruption associated with the digital economy insofar as Google search is concerned will continue with all of it's consequences at grass roots level. I don't think big business deals with this very well without legislative protection.

Anyone caught in financial hardship, can seek relief under various advanced countries provisions for hardship in taxation related matters [ e.g .S53 in the US ... same in UK / AU / and probably others ]. Google's severe algorthimn changes may be captured under this in the same manner as a farmer losing his livelihood due to severe storm damage. It's worth investigating.

Having said that , the landscape is what it is , so folks have to decide whether the reward is going to exceed the risk and deal with the situation as they see fit.

Google's plan seems to be that every listing will ultimately fall under their ownership, and payment for it in some shape or form will come through their doorway. If you can work with that fine, if not , make hay while the sun shines and use the experience to move on like the OP suggests.

Hats off to Dataguy for signalling that in his life at least, he's converted his many talents to something better and life can go on without enslavement to Google dependence. That's a great example.

[edited by: Whitey at 10:20 pm (utc) on Mar 2, 2012]