Click fraud blackmail

I've just read an interesting article on TechCrunch about a company called LeapFish in the US, who punished a client who declined to advertise with them by clicking on their Google link 50 times (Google charge on a cost per click basis so this may have cost a few hundred US$) and then emailed the client to inform them of this in the hope they would re-think their decision. Full article here. Nuts!

Here in China it is fairly common for some media owners to blackmail advertisers who don't support them by threatening negative PR stories unless they get what they deem a fair share of the media budget. A few years ago we encouraged several clients to stand up to this and even spoke to a TV station about doing an expose but unfortunately most of the clients deemed it too risky.