I bet this guy now would be willing to pay Google $100K+/year for personalized escalation services should such an issue arise again. What if Google had one set of rules for every site it crawled, but offered a personalized appeals process for those who paid up? I'm not sure if I like the idea or not. Let's presume that any "penalty box" algorithms end up (A) wrongly punishing some and (B) incorrectly ignoring others. What if Google's search results changed as a result of this "court only for those who pay" policy such that only those in Category A who didn't pay up were excluded? Would Google's evilness be reduced compared to the current state of affairs? Of course, Google would be less evil if it offered everyone their day in court for free.
