Look at Daniel Brandt who’s widely being tagged with the “tinfoil hat” stigma (though quite undeservedly, IMO) because of his outspoken anti-Google stance. Obviously, if you polarize people you’re pretty certain to lose that part of your audience that disagrees with you.

I think you agree with me that it is impossible to please everybody.

But all of that’s merely tactical. Personally, though I’ve been known to adopt a heavy hitter stance more thand once against behemoths like Google plus the entire PPC industry whenever it has another self-interested bash at playing down click fraud issues and hoodwinking the markets, I abide by the self-imposed rule that while there may not be anything “right” or “wrong” in any objective, absolute sense, I simply don’t want to do things I’m not willing to stand up for - that’s just about as much “ethics/morals” as I’m willing to put up with, but quite sufficient at that.

I don’t see the work of anti-X bloggers in the same light as the ones pestering others to ignite controversy.

I firmly think that we must stand against hidden agendas and hypocrisy. It is now common to see search engines trying to police the web and at the same time breaking the same rules they are trying to impose.

That is one of the reasons that I enjoy reading blogs like yours, Aaron Wall’s and others that are not afraid to say what they think. Keep it up.

@Hamlet: Full agreement re how controversy as a means of branding can backfire terribly, especially if you target individual persons. But even institutions (such as the search engines in general and Google in particular) aren’t always the best of targets. Look at Daniel Brandt who’s widely being tagged with the “tinfoil hat” stigma (though quite undeservedly, IMO) because of his outspoken anti-Google stance. Obviously, if you polarize people you’re pretty certain to lose that part of your audience that disagrees with you.
But all of that’s merely tactical. Personally, though I’ve been known to adopt a heavy hitter stance more thand once against behemoths like Google plus the entire PPC industry whenever it has another self-interested bash at playing down click fraud issues and hoodwinking the markets, I abide by the self-imposed rule that while there may not be anything “right” or “wrong” in any objective, absolute sense, I simply don’t want to do things I’m not willing to stand up for - that’s just about as much “ethics/morals” as I’m willing to put up with, but quite sufficient at that.