Here is my take on this, it can be this simple: Google did not update the backlinks of any site. Meaning all the backlinks you have gotten for 5 months are not in play. Lets say you have a pr6, it takes somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 google backlinks to maintain a pr6. Google re-sets the rate to get and maintain a pr6 to 1400 links. If you did not have 1400 google backlinks your pr6 is now a pr5 (remember no new links are in play). If google changes the link criteria before a link update you will see exactly what google did. A drop in sites across the web, just like what happened. As a whole google devalued the entire internet, not just a selective part of it and except for the sites that got finked on for links every site went down because the criteria for the number of links vs. pr was changed. If your site's value was based partly on pagerank, the internet lost trillions in value yesterday. All to benefit one company. But what about sites like statcounter, going from pr9 to pr6 ? Well people watch out. Google will still take down sites that sell paid links. If no one is going to stop them they will continue to do so. Lets say for every two sites that get hit, google makes $100 in increased revenue. Why, they will get to millions of sites, make sure no one wants to advertise on those sites, all to make more money. This my friends is called an illegal monopoly. They have downgraded the internet enough yesterday so people are currently afraid to buy, sell and trade links. What a boom for a company that sells link space on websites. Even though google can do what they wish, they cannot create an action to defame someone or something to financially benefit themselves. How much do you think they stand to gain from their actions? Hundreds of millions, billions or more. Each month. A few years ago google did the same thing. Downgrade or remove sites so their bottom line increases for their stockholders. They did not do this to benefit anyone but themselves. If anyone going to start a class-action lawsuit, I'm in.
Sounds great go for it, all my sites went up in Pagerank making them more valuable for link sales if i did in fact sell links which i don't.. So i wouldn't have a case to argue.