Worth noting that if enough bad PR gets into the lamestream media about this it could be a death knell. CBSi doesn't exactly monetize well, and CNet has always bled money.
It's not (most likely) the case of Microsoft going to them. Microsoft (as well as google) just pays for customers that you bring to their search. Many products make living out of it. Now, CNet just wanted to make more money. It's a shady practice to do it this way, but Microsoft shouldn't be the one to blame.
I'm not buying this idea that Microsoft doesn't know what's going on.
For CNet to make money on the deal, Microsoft would need a way to attribute the increased traffic to CNet. If Microsoft is paying them significant sums and yet remaining willfully ignorant of the means, then Microsoft is no better than your bottom feeding pay-per-install malware services.
The fact that we're even discussing Microsoft's reputation in this way is what led me to say "O how the mighty have fallen." It's quite sad IMHO.
The toolbar installation is optional. It might not be nice but I don't see why it should be forbidden from Microsoft's side as that's the point behind these partnership after all (same with Google). Every other product asks you to install their toolbar. The product in this case is downloader and most importantly CNet's traffic.
O how the mighty have fallen.