Jez123 - 9:12 am on Feb 5, 2013 (gmt 0)

I've yet to use it and have no intention

I think "yet" is the most significant thing you said.

My site is 12 years old and has never engaged in buying or selling links. It's my business and I sell from it and it's my livelihood and my baby that I have built from nothing at all. I would never risk doing anything I thought was risky and have always been very very careful where links are concerned. In fact I wonder if this was not the issue. This is not as clear cut as you and Matt Cutts imply. If you look in what was my SERP, all bar 1 of the sites that I have competed against over the last 12 years have all gone from the 1st page and for the most part replaced by the real spammers and the big authority sites all selling the same product (who incidentally are made by the site now at #1). Were they all spammers as your suggestion as well?

Only webmasters that got caught with their hand in the paid link cookie jar or some other linking scheme are panicking.

That's just inflammatory. I would report the message if you weren't a moderator - there is little point as you are.