Last modified: March 22, 2004, 8:50 AM PST
/ ?0 ]3 R4 z8 n {) S+ U; T1 c9 TBy Jo Best 4 H- a' f3 b% {$ m
Special to CNET News.com
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A California man has been charged with extortion, after allegedly making demands for $100,000 from search giant Google.
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" ~0 k# u# v% p, I @; L$ [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. * F) k4 |4 K( I0 w: N" W1 y
9 L9 N3 P% [# ~/ I+ q' uThe 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. 9 S0 }9 J* E) V- e
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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.
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9 J; o8 C. y5 @* AAccording 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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4 q# ?; J9 {# N. F$ B3 nAfter 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. ( }1 p& I; H1 g/ d# p8 J
5 u l" m9 q: J* u/ C) l" y2 B b4 FBradley was released on $50,000 bail, on the condition that he has no contact with his computer or Google.
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- e! e C9 K/ yJo Best of Silicon.com reported from London.( ~8 }5 J3 z6 Q" P" ~
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http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5176670.html?tag=mac.nn |
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發表於 2004-4-10 12:39:44
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