Blackmail for Web Traffic?

Is Comscore blackmailing small Web publishers? For a decade, the traffic-counting company has been at odds with its clients, who argue that its system of counting traffic, which extrapolates the experience of a small panel of Web users, vastly underestimates site traffic, particularly compared to the numbers that companies have on their site log. Now, under pressure from rival Quantcast, which offers free tracking pixels, Comscore is changing its ways, using a "hybrid" method that incorporates the old panel method and its own new tracking pixel. Here's the hitch: only companies with Comscore's extremely expensive pay subscription will be able to get the tracking pixel. All other sites, primarily smaller publishers, will have to pony up $10,000 for the pixel. Business Insider’s Henry Blodget called the practice "blackmail" that amounts to telling sites, "If you want your higher traffic numbers, you need to pay us $10,000."