Google, a Leaking Monster

Something must be going wrong these days over at the plex. This is very unlike them and begs the question whether it is on purpose or just mistakes stemming from growing pains.

At first, they mistakenly “accidently” published their 2006 financial forcast. WJS wrote:

Google Inc. said Tuesday it accidentally disclosed internal financial projections on its investor-relations Web site, but said some of the figures are unreliable and shouldn’t be considered current guidance.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Google said the statements included a forecast for $9.5 billion in 2006 advertising revenue and the disclosure that the company’s AdSense margins “will be squeezed in 2006 and beyond.”

And I am asking, why exactly do they expect that AdSense margins “will be squeezed in 2006 and beyond.”? Is it the competition that scares them? Is it clickfraud? Is it the billions of spam pages showing their ads, and ripping off advertisers? Future will tell…

They then published a presentation on their site with the wrong (classified) sidenotes. This one covered their plans to create a “world-storage” facility to serve as another tool meant towards accessing people’s information. BBC reported:

In the notes, chief executive Eric Schmidt reportedly said Google’s aim was to “store 100%” of users’ information.

The notes said: “With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including e-mails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc; and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc).”

Google spokeswoman Lynn Fox commented that “We deleted the slide notes because they were not intended for publication.”

[Found via Threadwatch]