comScore, Ethics, Google, Paid Click, and Disclosure

Perhaps I’m missing something but here’s something I haven’t heard anyone talk about:

1. Who at comScore owns/owned stock in Google?
2. Did they sell before they released the click data?
3. Did they buy afterwards?
4. If they did, is it ethical?
5. If it’s not can we call the report conScore? =P
6. By Google not providing guidance, and people in Google playing their own stock, (if that’s happening…) is it possible to have "reverse insider information?"
7. Is that ethical?
8. If it’s not could we call the act Scroooodue? =P
9. WTF is the transparency?

I’m just kidding with the names but I think there is something wrong with this country when the housing and markets & more and more markets seem like they are gamed and the only losers are the hard working honest aging middle class Americans who are so busy trying to make ends meet that they don’t have time to pay attention to all of this stuff.

Capitalism at it’s best? or Creative Capitalism? I could be off my rocker but as far as I know with the NASDAQ index, companies like comScore and others who have financial analysts and technical analysts working together producing performance information and the info seems to get out pretty quickly and seems pretty "pro bono." So pro bono infact it might add a second meaning to the word.

Who the hell are paying for these reports? This company is doing well and that company isn’t, and this company has this performance. The damn things are only right half the time and there is always some lame reason why this or that was off or on.

Then right afterwards we learn more and then finally the real results come out and the market evens out for a month. To make matters worse, the one company who is most volatile–Google–is the one everyone loves to report, buy, sell, rant, rave, bitch, moan and cry about. I think the problem is two fold.

1. Insider information isn’t necessarily insider information in an age of information, if you have stock and you are publishing a wide spread analysis of their performance, before they talk about their own performance, don’t you think it’s fair to everyone involved to let us know if you stand anything to gain from the ups and downs of a volatile stock like Google?
2. Google doesn’t provide guidance: People love the fact that they can "Play the Google stock." Google hasn’t provided guidance, so it’s easy to suck money out of an aging middle to upper middle class America who tries their best to play these new growth companies but don’t quite understand what the hell is going on. People in the green hire friends over to sign into their accounts and hit the sell button as fast as possible as soon as these metrics come out.

Disclosure: I don’t own, nor have I ever own Google stock, not because I wasn’t bright enough to buy at the IPO, just because I don’t make enough money yet in life to play. Yet.

Update: I just read Donna Bogatin’s report on this, I recommend you do as well. I wish I had time to read this stuff more, I’ve been so busy with everything I wish I could clone myself. Wait, that’s unethical too! Especially if I patent myself!

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