Comments on: Oh So Quiet We Leak

By: Steve Hooker

Steve Hooker — Sat, 12 Jun 2004 21:49:42 +0000

Politicians do it all the time. Kite Flying, moody PR. Maybe DW.s evil empire campaign had some effect on share price or conscience and they thought that testing the waters on a conciliatory tactic would be a good thing no matter what the waters said.

By: Doug Mehus

Doug Mehus — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 20:56:45 +0000

Good point, pb.

Cheers,
Doug

By: pb

pb — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 15:48:21 +0000

I doubt it’s a violation of Google’s quiet period policy. The SEC is pretty clear that you’re entitled to go about your business. This story is about as trivial as whether or not Google serves Starbucks or Peets in the break room. Quite a bit different from a CEO spouting off about his company’s prospects.

By: Doug Mehus

Doug Mehus — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 07:30:42 +0000

Yeah, the RSS/Atom debate is quite a technical discussion so it's understandable a Google employee (presumably a programmer or project manager) would leak the details to CNET News.com. They probably hadn't even considered the possibility that it was a violation of company policy during the "quiet period".

Cheers,
Doug

By: Seth Finkelstein

Seth Finkelstein — Fri, 11 Jun 2004 05:46:27 +0000

My guess would be the former - someone at Google disregarded company policy. The "RSS Wars" are enough of a techie matter that it's easy to see someone just not thinking about "suit" issues such as quiet period, or ignoring them as not relevant.