Blog lets readers decide alleged hacker's fate

By Andrew Ramadge
blogs.news.com.au
April 29, 2010

TALK about walking the walk -- one of the world.s biggest tech blogs is taking the idea of crowdsourcing to a new level by letting its readers decide whether or not to press charges against an alleged hacker.

Earlier this year, tech blog TechCrunch was compromised by a hacker who at various points redirected users to an adult site and defaced the homepage.

Now police think they've nabbed the culprit and TechCrunch has been asked if it wants to press charges.

But, in the spirit of Web 2.0, the blog is leaving that decision to its readers.

"We're going to let you decide -- do we press charges or just let this go? The poll is at the bottom of the post. Whatever you decide, we'll do," wrote founder Michael Arrington in a post.