Anyone who likes old mob movies understands the protection racket.  Pay protection and you don't get hurt.  Don't pay and bad things start to happen.

On Monday Sarah Bird, general counsel at SEOMOZ wrote a great blog entitled The Anatomy of a RipOff Report Lawsuit.  I highly recommend giving the article a read.  It is short on legalese and raises some possible defenses to what some believe is SEO driven extortion.