Penguin survived sites - Noticed backlinks from paid directories

Hi Guys,

Is it just me or has anyone come across sites that managed to survive Penguin seem to have a high number of backlinks from paid directories?

I noticed this with about 5 competitors. Started following their backlinks and saw that all of them have a higher # of links from paid directories. And upon doing my own research into paid directories, almost all of them are listed there.

What surprises me is that this goes against G's logic of penalizing sites that pay to put up their links... or are paid directories exempt from this? Can anyone explain>

Yes, I've been noticing this as well and so has my friend in another niche.

I think we've all seen this going on. So what did I do? I built a pay directory for my niche. If you can't beat em...

yup noticed dmoz listed sites absolutely owning my niche now as well