Does Googlebowling still work?

Does Googlebowling still work?

I read this on a site:

Here’s the catch, and how Googlebowling can work…Linking the competitor to bad neighborhoods will trigger Google’s spam filter, and get the site penalized on Google.

I guess the NEW definition of Googlebowling is: Site-wide inbound links coming from bad neighborhoods, and using a competitive term as the text link’s anchor text.

However, some “authority sites�? are impossible to googlebowl. Eg: 10 years+ in the index and thousands of inbound links already.

This seems false to me. A site can't control who links to them. So why should they be punished for bad links?

 

It doesn't work. You can put bad press out there that will hurt them, though, but that is mean.