Prosecutors, seemingly out of the blue, dropped the charges against Michael Anthony Bradley that arose when he tried to extort money from Google. Bradley had threatened to release software that generated false clicks on Google ads that would have resulted in millions of dollars in click fraud being perpetrated. While the prosecutors had plenty of evidence, including a tape of Bradley's threat to Google executives, it may have been Google itself that lead to the charges being dismissed.

The company appears to have refused to allow prosecutors or anyone else access to its click fraud-related business operations. Doing so would have, according to Google, would have not only revealed information that would help its competitors, but also would have helped people who try to perpetrate click-fraud. But not cooperating also means that the guy gets off after explicitly stating that he was working to defraud Google and its advertisers.

So what do you think? Did Google make the right call by keeping its trade secrets secret? Or are they damaging their own reputation, as well as that of the rest of the search ad market, by not prosecuting this guy regardless of the cost?