If Google penalises then would it not be easy for competitors to take actions against you to lose your site rakings? If that happens then the index will turn into a bun fight and Google will no longer be able to function.
Clearly there are cases where someone is caught red handed (JC Penny) but for a lot of the other situations, for example dodgy links that could have been bought by the site owner or one of their competitors, isn't it more likely that they would just be given a nil value?
>isn't it more likely that they would just be given a nil value?
That would be the logical thing to do, but it looks like this isn't the case at the moment. Apparently, it isn't so easy for G to turn the big ship around when it comes to policy. I suspect they will eventually have to change now that the penalty is widely known.