I'm not sure I agree with you there Brian - it's very "Big Brother" of Google to dismiss website's based on TLD don't you think?
I had a couple of .info's a bit back - because as you point out they were cheap, I didn't do much with them and let them expire - but I certainly didn't put spammy content up or phishing site's etc... If I had built up a good website on a .info domain and Google then banished me from the SERPs because of the .info extension I would be very slightly upset
And if Google is going down this route of "if the cap fits..." then surely they need to ban .ru domains because Russians are all hackers, .cn domains because the Chinese are all communist's and hackers? and the Irish are all terrorist's so they need to ban .ie domains too?
I do agree that .info domains have a higher percentage of rubbish compared with other TLD's but blanket banning / filtering them... not sure about that one...
