"Deceiving the search engine to affect its decisions is an explicit goal, as is not getting caught."

Indeed. Yet that obviously does not automatically imply deceiving the users, as you erroneously stated earlier. Doing so would be stupid, as in serving up porn for bridge search results, for example.

"They acknowledge causing bad decisions from the search engine and irrelevant results for users."

Incorrect. You misunderstood what he stated. By saying "vote with their mice" he is referring to whether or not users purchase products or otherwise "convert". Granted, this interview does not cover his stance on DECEIVING the users. The following one does:

http://www.searchethos.com/fantomaster-response.html

"Deceptive cloaking (again: solely viewed from the surfer's perspective) is self-defeating"

"And they're untrustworthy scum, which is why they're eagerly participating in the tragedy of the commons."

Interesting that you would drag morality into an exclusively technological issue. I won't address this, as it has no place in this discussion.