Man arrested for allegedly extorting Google

Last modified: March 22, 2004, 8:50 AM PST
$ z; |, z$ y" w2 a8 v4 F3 X/ vBy Jo Best
1 B( T0 ?6 q  e1 LSpecial 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.

- Z8 ?5 j1 j" k5 E% VAccording 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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$ v4 Y) Q6 u6 IThe 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.
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The 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.

" b# b7 d$ {6 X$ V( fAccording to the papers, he also offered his services as a consultant engineer to help the search engine stop other advertising fraud.

: w9 D4 u5 f5 b* rAfter 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.
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/ C1 L7 Y1 L& F2 y2 D' X% W/ }Bradley was released on $50,000 bail, on the condition that he has no contact with his computer or Google.

; J( x; |8 g* o7 @8 T0 bJo Best of Silicon.com reported from London.
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http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5176670.html?tag=mac.nn

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