Back then, it wasn't widely regarded as being immoral - I knew it wasn't right, but there was a lot of pressure for results. Basically, if we couldn't make an impact on Google, we'd have been fired.
Sadly things haven't changed all that much, there are plenty of people who still view this kind of stuff as normal 'industry best practice':
YCombinator funds companies in the spyware spam downloads 'industry'[1].
Path, a well funded startup whose CEO is well connected and has invested in YC startups, was caught stealing users address books and declared it was 'industry best practice'[2]. Twitter [3] and Facebook have done similar things.
AirBnB, another large well funded YC startup were caught spamming Craigslist and nobody that mattered (investors, employees, industry leaders etc) seemed to care. The founder also has previous convictions for spamming and again nobody seemed to care [4]
SocialCam, another YC startup was spamming Facebook [5].
Spamming is endemic in the SaaS industry, there are hundreds of other recent examples. Even if you are a serial spammer who has been caught multiple times that won't stop you being well respected in the industry and getting masses of funding. Spamming is rewarded by the community. They like to use euphemisms like 'growth hack', but we all know what it really means: SPAM.
I can't draw an exact comparison between myself of some of those things. And I agree, things haven't changed they've just evolved.
I have this big issue at the moment, that too many companies are focusing on profits to satisfy investors. I suppose they have to get their ROI.
In most cases the guy at the top with biggest spending habits (whether that's an investor or a manager) will be pressuring the rest of company to increase profits at any expense.
So was the moral of the story that if someone is willing to employ immoral spammers, like you and Ian, he might be a con man?