Dot-Con Job

The Seattle Times has published an excellent investigative report on the ridiculous business and accounting practices at InfoSpace during the dot-com boom. The report is quite detailed and spans three parts, but it's well worth taking time to read. What makes it especially interesting is the inclusion of company emails and voicemails that were obtained by subpoena. InfoSpace executives played a variety of shady games to boost revenues, engaged in schemes to bypass insider trading regulations, and inflated projections to an absurd level. The fact that none of these people have been investigated by the SEC, while Martha Stewart went to jail, is just stupid.

(The only part of the report not worth reading is the segment on "who lost", unless you want to hear from a moron who invested her life savings in Internet stocks or a day trader who is pissed that he lost $80,000.)