As someone who attends (and occasionally speaks at) SEO conferences, I can say #1 I'm glad and #2 Google needs to do this MUCH more. There are 2 problems: #

As someone who attends (and occasionally speaks at) SEO conferences, I can say #1 I'm glad and #2 Google needs to do this MUCH more. There are 2 problems: #1 links are still very potent, #2 JC Penney and Overstock got a public lashing, they had all of their rankings back within 90 days. The market won't take Google's Webmaster Guidelines seriously until someone loses a few hundred million in revenue, or at least enterprise value when they violate them. It's a classic downward spiral: cheaters get rankings, traffic, revenue, all of which helps them cheat better (or cover their tracks to look legit), which deprives the WG-followers of equal opportunity.