Certainly not. I don't think there's anything unethical about what you described.
What I wrote was in response to the notion that he would be angered had you actually "tricked" TechCrunch into writing about you. They, after all, are the one's publishing the story so if they print information that is untrue that they didn't bother vetting, that's their fault, not anybody else's.
If I send a bogus tip to the Washington Post and they immediately run a story on it without question, that's incredibly irresponsible on their part and the fault lies with them. That may seem like an unlikely scenario, but the same thing happens on a daily basis on blogs and slightly lesser-known news outlets with readership in the millions.
What I wrote was in response to the notion that he would be angered had you actually "tricked" TechCrunch into writing about you. They, after all, are the one's publishing the story so if they print information that is untrue that they didn't bother vetting, that's their fault, not anybody else's.
If I send a bogus tip to the Washington Post and they immediately run a story on it without question, that's incredibly irresponsible on their part and the fault lies with them. That may seem like an unlikely scenario, but the same thing happens on a daily basis on blogs and slightly lesser-known news outlets with readership in the millions.