Thoughts On Freebie Trading

I read an interesting article about freebie trading and how it is "The Internets Biggest Scam." From what I can tell, it does sound like a scam and it also sounds dishonest (having only this article to base my opinion on).

What are your opinions on the subject? Is there a legitimate form of Freebie trading? Is there anyone doing it who is not ripping people or companies off? Furthermore, what is freebie trading exactly?

This topic also interests me because I have been using TrialPay as a payment alternative on one of my sites for about 2 years (Google "free tie"). Basically TrialPay pays me for a product that I give to my customer for free if my customer participates in a trial or discounted offer from TrialPay affiliates (Netflix, Gap, etc.). I've never had any customers report a problem with them and I've used them myself to get free stuff for trying offers. Just recently I got a free pizza for trying Netflix through TrialPay.

Is that considered freebie trading? Thanks in advance for your comments.

Here is a link to the article "The Internet's Biggest Scam" on ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Business/TheBigMoney/big-internet-scam/story?id=9801482