Man arrested for allegedly extorting Google

Last modified: March 22, 2004, 8:50 AM PST
By Jo Best
Special to CNET News.com
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A California man has been charged with extortion, after allegedly making demands for $100,000 from search giant Google.
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According to court papers, he claimed that if Google did not pay, he would release a piece of software to spammers that would generate fake advertising hits, costing the search giant millions.
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+ Z5 E& B6 g- U+ B" c/ zThe man, Michael Bradley, was so sure that the folks at Google would pay up, he even turned up at their offices for a meeting to sell his software. By then, federal law enforcement agents were already on the case and videotaped the alleged extortion attempt.

4 k2 p* I: y  n  H% bThe software Bradley designed would have flooded the Google advertisements with fake clicks, potentially costing the company millions of dollars. Google pays Web publishers a fee for each click on the pop-ups the site generates. He threatened to give the software to the top 100 spammers in the meeting with Google's officials, court papers released on Friday show.

2 I7 \9 c* W9 X: L. i& N3 FAccording to the papers, he also offered his services as a consultant engineer to help the search engine stop other advertising fraud.
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0 _" ^/ U: Y2 H$ w8 r5 E5 F+ Y: pAfter he didn't hear back from the search engine staff about a payment, he allegedly sent an e-mail saying he would release the software to the public--and the spammers--the following week. He was then met by someone whom he likely expected to be a Google executive clutching a big bag of money but who turned out to be a federal agent with an arrest warrant.

6 {7 n, p- e) UBradley was released on $50,000 bail, on the condition that he has no contact with his computer or Google.

6 c, L  a, I- B3 b3 q* z# L/ KJo Best of Silicon.com reported from London.

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' @$ b  V$ ?+ I6 ]! z! Zhttp://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5176670.html?tag=mac.nn

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