Situation #1 happens fairly regularly - do you have/can you do a video that can be sent to the company asking for links to be removed which clearly explains what is happening? We have had clients such as a small bathroom fitting company where the company that made the showers that they fit demanded that our client remove all links to them. There was a degree of bad feeling, as our client fit a lot of showers from that company - the links were because they genuinely were endorsing them.
A video from Google would be useful to help explain what is happening here for all parties involved.
I thought I'd made at least one video for sites that have been getting link removal requests. I'll check, and if we haven't made one then I'd agree that would be useful. Thanks for the suggestion.
I guess that's kind of beneficial for Google though - now if people want to find out more about the showers your client fits, they have to Google for them, and Google can sell lots of profitable advertising space on those searches to competing bathroom fitting companies. I wonder how often it's in Google's financial interest to break hyperlinking on the web?
A video from Google would be useful to help explain what is happening here for all parties involved.