[ChuckMcM]

I wouldn't disagree with that comparison :-)

Back when I was working at Google there clearly was tension between people who were promoting the AdSense platform and Google's desire to have more inventory. Much of it seemed to fall into the "we didn't tell them to do this, they just came up with it on their own."

At the time (2006 - 2008 or so) the "deal" was person A would get a partner ID and they would resell Google ads through their partner ID to shops that they recruited. It was so bad that after I had left Google and joined Blekko the easiest web spam page to detect was the same AdSense ID across more than a handful of domains. The ranking team de-indexed every site where the AdSense ID appeared on more than 50 different URLs and it pruned a very significant chunk of the index of 'web spam'.

The only point I'm trying to make is that when your platform makes money on a per-use basis, whether its transactions or page views, there are people who will use that to create affiliate type businesses.