Michael Bradley, a California resident who claims to have developed a program to generate fraudulent clicks on Google’s Adword service, was arrested at the company’s offices and charged with extortion.
Bradley had threatened to sell the software to spammers if Google did not give him US$150,000 (€123,400).
The fact that the software is designed to trick Adwords into registering more clicks, and therefore more revenue for the customer from Google, coupled with trying to extort money out of Google by then threatening to sell the software earned him a speedy arrest and freedom on a US$50,000 (€41,100) bond.
He’s pleading not guilty.