They say that everyone has a price, and in a free market, you know that money definitely talks. Throw enough dough in the right direction, and you are more or less sure that there will be someone out there who is willing to get the job done. Google, for instance, is rich in terms of stocks and assets, that it would not be too much of a hassle for the company to reward people who are able to discover bugs in their software and apps, such as what they are doing with the Chrome browser. In fact, it longer the reward program is in place, the more difficult it is to discover vulnerabilities.
Hence, to catalyze the entire process, Google decided that more cash is the answer to help stimulate this effort. In fact, the maximum reward that a dedicated bounty hunter is able to receive would hit the $15,000 mark for each high-quality report, although that is still a far cry from the $110,000 reward which it put up for Chrome OS security bugs earlier this January, but it is triple the original $5,000 ceiling. Apart from that, recipients will also now be able to gloat to their doubtful friends that they happen to be the ones who reported the bugs, since any of these heroes will be listed in the program’s new Hall of Fame page. Sounds like quite the incentive, don’t you think so? [Press Release]