Google IPO Buyers Beware

[Joanne98]

Monday, Aug. 09, 2004
For the past six months, Silicon Valley has been abuzz with the prospect of the first blockbuster public offering in the tech sector since the dotcom crash: the IPO of search-engine giant Google, expected this month. But Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin seem to be doing their darnedest to dampen the hype. The company last week gave an unusually bullish official estimate of its opening share price: $108 to $135 a share, or more than 150 times annual per-share profit. (Most large companies average about one-seventh of that.) Google watchers were split on the reason. Either Page and Brin are trying to scare away those in search of a one-day profit — by snapping up shares in the IPO at a low price and selling them as soon as the price jumps — or they want the company to be valued as highly as longtime rival Yahoo (which currently beats Google in total profits, as well as quarterly growth). "Either way," says Mark Mahaney, San Francisco analyst for American Technology Research, "this is a real case of Buyer, beware."

Traditionally, tech IPOs start at low prices, which are then quickly forced up by market demand. But Google is using a complex online Dutch auction system, in

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040809-674758,00.html

Google isn't worth 100 dollars a share. geeeeez

[PDittie]

1. I'm out

I would have loved to have been a player on the first day, but Google is completely nuts about this.

It's like being offered a new car by the salesman at MSRP x 7.

It sort of insults your intelligence.

[customerserviceguy]

4. IPOs

are part of the way that rich people use the stock market to rig the table against middle class and working people. The whole thing is just a big game of convincing every buyer that there's a bigger sucker waiting out there to buy at a higher price next year.

I guess I'm a bit jaundiced, my ex is a stock broker.

[PDittie]

5. Welcome to the forum, monte

[customerserviceguy]

6. Thank you

Folks here have been pretty nice, even when I disagree with them, its always respectful.

[reprobate]

9. Monte, it's because we are dems. We got breeding and couths.

[montana_hazeleyes]

12. And the more

couths we breed the better!

[MichiganVote]

8. Welcome to DU monte!

[customerserviceguy]

10. Thanks

Been a lurker for several months, but time to give the mouse a rest, and brush up on those typing skills! I appreciate the welcome that I have been extended.

[bpilgrim]

2. when they're reading everyones thoughts...

there maybe great value to wall street marketeers not to mention BB.

July 13, 2004

Resistance is Futile. Your e-Mail Is Being Watched.

By Erin Joyce

...

Staggering stats? Forrester thought so, but not how you may think. In its summary and conclusions, the research firm's consulting group suggested the results are a testament to "the widespread failure of current content-scanning technologies to stop the leak of intellectual property, confidential memos and embarrassing information from the enterprise."

Almost 75 percent of companies with 20,000 or more employees said that reducing the financial and legal risks associated with outbound e-mail is "important" or "very important" in the next 12 months.

Other findings: less than 12 percent of companies report that they have deployed technology for detecting intellectual property breaches in outbound e-mail. The most common technique used for detecting these e-mails remains physical review by hired staff.

The survey comes on the heels of a recent federal court ruling that held it is perfectly legal for ISPs to read and copy the inbound e-mail of their clients. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston held that e-mail does not enjoy the same eavesdropping protections as telephone conversations, because it is stored on servers before being routed to recipients.

more...
http://www.internetnews.com/stats/article.php/3379841

July 1, 2004

ISPs Can Check E-Mail

By Roy Mark

Backed by the clear, though perhaps out-of-date, language of the Wiretap Act, e-mail providers have the right to read and copy the inbound e-mail of their clients, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday. The decision sparked howls of protest from privacy advocates, despite immediate assurances from some of the nation's largest ISPs that they would never engage in such practices.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit in Boston voted 2-1 Wednesday to uphold the dismissal of a 2001 indictment against Branford C. Councilman, the vice president of now-defunct Interloc Inc., a rare and out-of-print books site.

The U.S. district attorney for Massachusetts charged Councilman, who maintained an e-mail service for his clients, with illegal wiretapping for making copies of e-mail sent to his clients from Amazon.com. The district attorney claimed Councilman copied the e-mail to gain a competitive advantage.

But Councilman's attorneys argued his actions were within the legal limits, because he did not intercept the messages in transit. E-mail, often only momentarily, is routed through servers. The U.S. District Court for Massachusetts ultimately ruled that counted as storage and dismissed the indictment. (meaning they can read it, copy, archive, aggregate and mine it for behavior patterns and trends to SPAM you with at best and yall know what else at worst)

more...
http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3376371

peace

[Massacure]

3. Maybe we should start a letter writing campain

We should try to get E-mail included in wiretapping as well.

[DemoTex]

7. How low will it go and can I share a cell with Martha?

Need to know early in the trade window tomorrow.

Know what I mean Vern?

[GHOSTDANCER]

11. It is to the ruling elite,

The Rupert Murdochs? The Carlye Groups? Combine The search funtion and a G-Mail account in every home and it makes quite a compelling purchase.

[jmowreader]

13. Ten bucks a share. That's all it's worth.

It's a dotcom IPO. I don't care WHAT dotcom.

Yes, everyone's using Google now. But five years ago everyone was using Yahoo, and then everyone used AltaVista. Done a search on either engine lately?