Professor,
I agree with all you say EXCEPT for the fact that the scumballs flood the money areas (gambling and porn taking the 1st prize), and if they were serious about ridding the indices of the BH’ers, then what better place to try any potential “cleaning” algorithm than these areas ?
Affiliates, in general, are tied to closely to Google revenue (AdSense), so outright ban of affiliates would clearly cut off the money supply. A similar case can be made for the BH’ers, many of whom, subscribe to AdSense (kwblue is correct in that the above references in this post don’t appear to be using AdSense, today anyway).
There probably is a conflict of opinion in Google…..gambling is not looked at favorably by our government, revenue is of most importance, the indices are getting polluted, lots to ponder.
IMO, Google will lose its pre-eminence over time, and rising comers like ASK.COM, will increase, and eventually take over, market share.
Unfortunately, I think everyone loses, as we move forward…..