Originally Posted by Terry Van Horne

Agree with the jest of OWG's comment, especially W3C participation. Google didn't "create" nofollow, it is part of the spec for years but... not in the href it is a http equivalent attribute which it is legit to "create" an equiv meta tag as that is accomadated in earlier HTML specs. It is not "allowed" in the href presently (is listed as not allowed for href in the RFC) in that Google is creating an HREF attribute (rel="nofollow") which is new and formally undocumented or even on the table in the HTML 5 RFC. It is encouraging to see google mentioned in the HTML 5 RFC where it could be adopted and managed by the W3C. The W3C guidelines for implementing "nofollow" is quite transparent, succinct and actionable. ie: it is simply used when the author is not endorsing the link which does put the onus on webmasters not opaque Google guidelines that often are not understood by many in the industry. Sure their will be jackasses that don't use it properly but... there will always be a stall in this industries barn for a large number of jacjkasses this won't fix that!