That seems plausible. However, whatever the true reason is, the end result is that Google is paying people to generate junk content. That's not good for anyone.
It seems silly to me to get mad at Google for paying, what, ten thousand dollars in affiliate payouts, incentivizing cruddy posts, when they simultaneously collect (and pay out) billions for the ubiquitous AdSense ads which you find on sites which, charitably, span a wide range in terms of content quality.
I think the problem isn't that they're doing both of those things at the same time. The problem, instead, is that the third thing they're doing at the same time is issuing guidelines, (hopefully?) backed by their ranking algorithm, written specifically to combat this type of behavior.
If it were a free-for-all, sure, no problem. But Google doesn't want other parties doing this. Doing it themselves puts them in a position that's a little difficult to explain.
The problem is if google treats the chrome affiliate junk content differently from other junk content. If it is all treated the same, then it should be ok.
I imagine that Google's search algo team is in a separate silo from their chrome marketing team (much like the search algo team is separated from the Adsense team) to try isolate them from the corrupting influence of their marketing team.
That said, Google would be risking their search cash cow by the mere existence of this sort of campaign as it undermines the perception of the independence of their search results, so perhaps they should steer clear of offering incentives of this sort.
