Its always been acceptable to google, ysm and so on. Its a myth that arbitrage delivers bad traffic, it can be good providing you do it right, better even than other methods.
What they don't want are 1000's of sites arbitraging, many of them not very well, its far better to let a few big boys do it and do it with skill, I mean thats how it used to be anyway circa 1999-2004 as it hadn't gone mainstream, no adsense and feeds were harder to get.
Its kinda gone full circle back to a few players who will have permission from ysm/google etc to drive traffic this way but its a bitter pill to those shoved out the door or those just experiencing bad google Q/S when you realise the playing field is not level.
On that count its hard for google to justify their Q/S system when big companies can sidestep it, Ebay is another one besides ASK.com and its a shame there is no mainstream scrutiny of this issue, it deserves it. I think though Google would just say that Q/S is also about brand, Ebay and Ask both have brand whereas your affiliate ppc feed site often does not. So its about dollars, brand and other factors but it still makes Google's arguments for Q/S look weak as long as it persists.
Also if you are a ppc affiliate these days you will know its all about quality of traffic, if you want to stay in the game then this is the world you play in, many affiliates/arbers also will have hit the road because of this also. Presumably Ask.com's traffic is upto scratch based on the conversion metrics. Life ain't fair but whats new there.
