I'm not going to get into the moral or ethical conflict that this thread is about. I am sure that everyone including the originator of the thread agrees that it is unprofessional, unethical and unbecoming of any type of webmaster.

Now with that said, let me go a little further. With more and more commercials and programs being shown on TV of how to get rich on the internet, internet shortcuts, crazy like a fox, etc. Do you think all those people have ethics? Search engines make rules, but they don't seem to be real quick on enforcing them. In a lot of instances, they do not have the capabilities of finding or dealing with sites that are not abiding by them. There are a lot of people out there that rely on the income they make off of their sites, so if their competition is using underhanded and deceitful tactics like this one to get the upper hand, how long are you going to wait and how much money are you going to lose before you jump on the same ship? It can be years before the SE's do anything about it, and this is after someone reports you. More and more are we seeing sites specifically made for ad-sense. More and more are we seeing hidden text, keyword stuffing, alt tag stuffing. The sad truth is just because one search engine may find you, chances are that they all won't. Now I am not saying that everyone should go out and do this, I am not for doing this. But the online has become very populated and it is getting to be cut throat. Search engines, from what I have seen, are reactive, but not proactive. They only do something about an issue when the issue becomes out of hand. So in short, if you find yourself losing sales, losing money and losing your place in the SERP's because of the underhanded and unethical practices of your competition, you are either going to sink or swim.