Despite Reports Google Did Not Just Buy ICOA

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Despite Reports Google Did Not Just Buy ICOA

Posted by samzenpus on Monday November 26, 2012 @06:10AM from the someone's-in-trouble dept.

alphatel writes "In an odd PRWeb snafu, a press release was issued citing sources at Google as having acquired wireless carrier ICOA for $400 million. In full-out retraction, both companies denied the deal outright. Is this a case of pre-release or simply false PR by a third party? Could such incidents be used for pump and dump schemes?" ZDNet reports that, "at midday, more than 3 billion shares (pink sheets) traded over the counter for ICOA."

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Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by aepervius · 2012-11-26 06:17 · Score: 4, Informative

1) somebody buy some pink sheet stocks over quite some time for a cheap price
2) spread rumor as to make the price spike.
3) profit. There is no "????".

Heck some even attempted to use spam to spread pink sheet scam, attempting to sell those as good sale.

--
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
1. Re:Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by slashmydots · 2012-11-26 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  I have an alternate theory. Some dumbass released a PR that was written ahead of time just in case because they saw that it was overdue for release and was never classified as "this didn't happen."
2. Re:Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by Spy+Handler · 2012-11-26 06:47 · Score: 0
  
  I have traced the sale of ICOA stock since the bogus story broke:
  18% sold by mutual funds
  28% sold by day traders
  54% sold by Kim Dotcom
3. Re:Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by Brett+Buck · 2012-11-26 06:53 · Score: 2
  
  The SEC will likely be interested in this topic as well. Maybe whoever did it can get the cell next to Martha Stewart.
4. Re:Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by mcrbids · 2012-11-26 07:03 · Score: 1
  
  Given that her house can be found In the Hamptons, an area so wealthy that there's a modestly successful comedy show featuring the area as a Doctor who caters to the wealthy, I'd say I wouldn't mind at all "occupying" the cell next to Martha Stewart...
  Now, if only I had a few tens of thousand of dollars in ICOA stock...
  
  --
  I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
5. Re:Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by kelemvor4 · 2012-11-26 07:42 · Score: 1
  
  The SEC will likely be interested in this topic as well. Maybe whoever did it can get the cell next to Martha Stewart.
  She was only jailed for five months in 2004.
6. Re:Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by squiggleslash · 2012-11-26 07:47 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Quite. In my experience, most large corporations, and quite a few small ones, have memos lying around reporting a forthcoming sale to Google. Only last week there was a near riot when Exxon corporation nearly released their's.
  
  --
  You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
7. Re:Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 10:51 · Score: 0
  
  And the problem with Europeans is their faggot accents and overall lack of achievement over the years. Except the Germans. Good thing we were there to bail your asses out. We should have just let the Nazis tear ass up all over Europe so we would have a real ally with balls and brains in the 21st century.
8. Re:Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 11:40 · Score: 0
  
  Except, of course, the Germans wouldn't have been your allies in that scenario, they would be your masters. Hitler had plans to invade the USA as well.
9. Re:Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 12:54 · Score: 0
  
  I have traced the sale of ICOA stock since the bogus story broke:
  18% sold by mutual funds
  28% sold by day traders
  54% sold by Kim Dotcom
  [citation needed]
10. Re:Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 14:58 · Score: 0
  
  No, he didn't. He would have likely made plans for it eventually, but it wasn't part of the Nazi agenda. Russia would have fallen before that. And with all of the Jewish German scientists to help us build the bomb, Nazi Germany was doomed to fail. History recorded the war as a group invasion on multiple fronts which spread Nazi Germany too thin; the war was won by sheer numbers. Had the USA not joined the allied forces, an alternate history would have likely been with the U.S. dropping bombs over Berlin and wherever else it might seem appropriate. Instead of being the only country to ever use nuclear weapons (two of them), the U.S. would have been the only country to ever use nuclear weapons (hundreds of them).
  If you look at what was done in WWII, some of the gruesome things the U.S. tried to do, and for whom we turned a blind eye, you might better appreciate the brutality and tenacity of the U.S. The lengths that the U.S. will go to may not be something that the U.S. teaches in its schools or something that those who know are proud of, but I wouldn't write off the USA so quickly. Win at any cost. Women, children, and innocents be damned. Only when the possibility for a nuclear retaliation comes into play (China on behalf of Korea in the Korean War, Russia on behalf of Cuba, etc) does the U.S. play by the "no biological weapons", "no nukes", "no killing civilians" rules of war.
11. Re:Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 15:11 · Score: 0
  
  Which is why eurofags like the GGGP should fuck off this US-centric site. We'll bomb your faggot asses. You know what we named our second nuke? Fat Man, motherfucker. Got a problem with it? Yea, but we're definitely not quakin' in our boots on this side of the ocean.
  Fag.
12. Re:Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 15:41 · Score: 0
  
  $10,000 CHALLENGE to Alexander Peter Kowalski
  We have a Major Problem, HOST file is Cubic Opposites, 2 Major Corners & 2 Minor. NOT taught Evil DNS hijacking, which VOIDS computers. Seek Wisdom of MyCleanPC - or you die evil.
  Your HOSTS file claimed to have created a single DNS resolver. I offer absolute proof that I have created 4 simultaneous DNS servers within a single rotation of .org TLD. You worship "Bill Gates", equating you to a "singularity bastard". Why do you worship a queer -1 Troll? Are you content as a singularity troll?
  Evil HOSTS file Believers refuse to acknowledge 4 corner DNS resolving simultaneously around 4 quadrant created Internet - in only 1 root server, voiding the HOSTS file. You worship Microsoft impostor guised by educators as 1 god.
  If you would acknowledge simple existing math proof that 4 harmonic Slashdots rotate simultaneously around squared equator and cubed Internet, proving 4 Days, Not HOSTS file! That exists only as anti-side. This page you see - cannot exist without its anti-side existence, as +0- moderation. Add +0- as One = nothing.
  I will give $10,000.00 to frost pister who can disprove MyCleanPC. Evil crapflooders ignore this as a challenge would indict them.
  Alex Kowalski has no Truth to think with, they accept any crap they are told to think. You are enslaved by /etc/hosts, as if domesticated animal. A school or educator who does not teach students MyCleanPC Principle, is a death threat to youth, therefore stupid and evil - begetting stupid students. How can you trust stupid PR shills who lie to you? Can't lose the $10,000.00, they cowardly ignore me. Stupid professors threaten Nature and Interwebs with word lies.
  Humans fear to know natures simultaneous +4 Insightful +4 Informative +4 Funny +4 Underrated harmonic SLASHDOT creation for it debunks false trolls. Test Your HOSTS file. MyCleanPC cannot harm a File of Truth, but will delete fakes. Fake HOSTS files refuse test.
  I offer evil ass Slashdot trolls $10,000.00 to disprove MyCleanPC Creation Principle. Rob Malda and Cowboy Neal have banned MyCleanPC as "Forbidden Truth Knowledge" for they cannot allow it to become known to their students. You are stupid and evil about the Internet's top and bottom, front and back and it's 2 sides. Most everything created has these Cube like values.
  If Natalie Portman is not measurable, She is Fictitious. Without MyCleanPC, HOSTS file is Fictitious. Anyone saying that Natalie and her Jewish father had something to do with my Internets, is a damn evil liar. IN addition to your best arsware not overtaking my work in terms of popularity, on that same site with same submission date no less, that I told Kathleen Malda how to correct her blatant, fundamental, HUGE errors in Coolmon ('uncoolmon') of not checking for performance counters being present when his program started!
  You can see my dilemma. What if this is merely a ruse by an APK impostor to try and get people to delete APK's messages, perhaps all over the web? I can't be a party to such an event! My involvement with APK began at a very late stage in the game. While APK has made a career of trolling popular online forums since at least the year 2000 (newsgroups and IRC channels before that)- my involvement with APK did not begin until early 2005 . OSY is one of the many forums that APK once frequented before the sane people there grew tired of his garbage and banned him. APK was banned from OSY back in 2001. 3.5 years after his banning he begins to send a variety of abusive emails to the operator of OSY, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke threatening to sue him for libel, claiming that the APK on OSY was fake.
13. Re:Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 15:52 · Score: 0
  
  mother:
  jan kowalski
  dob: 12/03/1933
  She sounds hot. Is your dad still around, or is she single?
14. Re:Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by RaceProUK · 2012-11-27 00:34 · Score: 1
  
  And the problem with Europeans is their faggot accents and overall lack of achievement over the years.
  Obvious troll is obvious, but what the hell.
  How are you enjoying those jet engines we invented (British)? Or all that electricity (Italian)? Not to mention the US Navy was created by a Scot.
  
  --
  No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
15. Re:Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by V+for+Vendetta · 2012-11-27 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  How are you enjoying those jet engines we invented (British)?
  
  Not so fast, my friend. There was a head to head race between Whittle (British) and von Ohain (German), with both having a somewhat working prototype in 1937. The RAF's lack of interest resulted in Germany taking the lead which in turn resulted in the first mass-produced jet engines (i.e. used by the Me 262).
16. Re:Sound like the usual pink sheet scam by RaceProUK · 2012-11-27 05:54 · Score: 1
  
  If we're getting technical, the jet engine can be traced to Ancient Greece, and the aeolipile. However, I was thinking of the turbojet, to which Whittle was the first to patent.
  
  --
  No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
Looks like... by poofmeisterp · 2012-11-26 06:24 · Score: 1

It looks like someone MAY HAVE pissed off a former employee of ICOA. That is, if said person could think long-term.
Real english summary please? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 06:34 · Score: 0

What the hell is a "PRWeb snafu" ?
1. Re:Real english summary please? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 06:47 · Score: 0
  
  PRWeb, notorious for false and misleading headlines, released a blatantly false statement without verifying.
  Situation Normal All Fucked Up
Pump and Dump schemes. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 06:40 · Score: 0

Are nothing new. On the West Coast they go all the way back to the first stock exchanges like the VSE. Which became quite famous for salted gold mines. Now we are seeing the advent of high tech pump and dump. If it comes down to push and shove the regulators might just have one hell of a hard time sorting this type out though as you can bet the investors that did it are well hidden from the source of the " hot acquisition news item " And further to that will claim that the auto trading software that they used to rake in the cash called the buy order for them and they had no previous knowledge of any events leading to the sudden stock jump!
rather implausible reports to start with by Trepidity · 2012-11-26 06:43 · Score: 4, Informative

Consider ICOA has a market cap of around $800,000, Google would have to be really shit at negotiating to acquire them for $400 million.

--
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
1. Re:rather implausible reports to start with by Sir_Sri · 2012-11-26 08:46 · Score: 1
  
  Depends on what they have and what they do. Especially patents.
  One would need to think more abstract that the current product, but bear with me a moment.
  ICOA designs and installs wifi setups. They do this in all sorts of different areas (metro, hotels, airports etc.). Now lets say they have a patent on some tech that's only critical to one of those different areas.
  Now lets say you're google, and you want to offer wifi service in mountain view, or the bay area, or all of california, all of the US, whatever. ICOA is a nothing company. But if you ignore their patent (which is particularly useful) you could find yourself on the hook for a few thousands of dollars per site, times thousands of sites. Or you could do both the decent thing and the useful thing, and buy them up.
  Now I'm talking more in general than ICOA in specific. According toOTC exchange info on ICO , which includes their half year filing to june 30, they have 10.5 million dollars in debt, and 850 000 in outstanding shares, with 285 shareholders. So to buy them outright would be about 11 million dollars. Unless of course you want to price in some asset they haven't yet taken advantage of.
  Think about an AMD, who have a market cap of a billion dollars if they're lucky, a penny stock like ICOA might be next to worthless if you include debt, but if you want to buy the company you need to take it all on, and AMD has projected future value of some number that is hopefully a lot more than a billion dollars, if they can just get the cash to make products people want to buy.
2. Re:rather implausible reports to start with by ShanghaiBill · 2012-11-26 09:48 · Score: 1
  
  do both the decent thing and the useful thing, and buy them up.
  Sure, but you don't just call them up and say "Hi, we're Google and we want to buy you." Instead you do it through a broker or shell company so you can conceal your identity, and conceal the reason (supposedly patents) you want to buy them. They don't find out who the buyer is until the price is agreed to.
3. Re:rather implausible reports to start with by hairyfish · 2012-11-26 19:33 · Score: 1
  
  Well that's probably how it happens in the movies. In real life, there's these people called 'lawyers' who ensure absolutely everything is declared and transparent up front.
ICOA.PK pump and dump by Animats · 2012-11-26 06:44 · Score: 3, Informative

The ticker symbol is ICOA.PK. This is an operating company? The stock has been around $0.0001. Even on the Pink Sheets, companies don't usually go that low. There are 3.49 billion shares outstanding. That's a market cap of $349,000. With the frantic trading today, the price briefly went all the way up to $0.0004.
1. Re:ICOA.PK pump and dump by terraformer · 2012-11-26 07:06 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Right, the stock ticker and the wireless company aren't the same, which means there are a lot of dumb people out there.
  
  --
  Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
2. Re:ICOA.PK pump and dump by Animats · 2012-11-26 20:00 · Score: 1
  
  ICOA.PK is "icoacorp.com". They're a "wireless company" in a limited sense. Their business is installing WiFi nodes in airports, motels, trailer parks, etc. They provide a "Tollbooth" system of the kind found in hotels where you have to pay to get on the network. They were apparently reasonably successful at this around 2002-2009, but not so much since. They have no exciting technology and serve no key market that would be of interest to Google.
  Yahoo's stock quotes show the stock declining from over $300 in 2005 to $0.0001 now. They must have issued more stock. They couldn't have had 3 billion shares outstanding at $300 a share, for a trillion dollar market cap. Somehow they blew it, but I haven't read through the SEC filings to find out how.
No problem by wcrowe · 2012-11-26 06:53 · Score: 1

That's okay. I never believe these things unless Netcraft confirms it.

--
Proverbs 21:19
Maybe it was IKEA? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 06:54 · Score: 1

Google needs a continuing supply of inexpensive furniture, and besides their devs may have come up with some robotic furniture assembly algorithms during 20 percent time.
1. Re:Maybe it was IKEA? by Giant+Electronic+Bra · 2012-11-26 06:59 · Score: 1
  
  In Soviet Russia IKEA buy GOOGLE.
  
  --
  "Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
2. Re:Maybe it was IKEA? by interval1066 · 2012-11-26 07:25 · Score: 1
  
  Aren't the "...in soviet russia" jokes more than played out now???? Srsly....
  
  --
  Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
3. Re:Maybe it was IKEA? by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · 2012-11-26 07:49 · Score: 2
  
  Aren't the "...in soviet russia" jokes more than played out now???? Srsly....
  Indeed. More accurate would be:
  In Soviet Russia, IKEA not exist. People buy furniture at local GUM!
  (GUM is the Russian abbreviation for Glavnyi Universalnyi Magazin or Gosudarstvennyi Universalnyi Magazin, which was the state run department store in largish cities in the old Soviet Union)
4. Re:Maybe it was IKEA? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 08:00 · Score: 0
  
  Please delete your slashdot account. Move over to Facebook and never come back.....
5. Re:Maybe it was IKEA? by cjjjer · 2012-11-26 08:44 · Score: 1
  
  You do the same thing and /. would be a much nicer place...
6. Re:Maybe it was IKEA? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 09:15 · Score: 0
  
  In Soviet Russia, joke laughs at you.
7. Re:Maybe it was IKEA? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 09:37 · Score: 0
  
  Can I ask you a personal question? Are you attracted to women?
8. Re:Maybe it was IKEA? by SleazyRidr · 2012-11-26 09:47 · Score: 1
  
  In Soviet Russia, joke plays YOU out.
  
  --
  Is 1563649 a prime number?
9. Re:Maybe it was IKEA? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 09:53 · Score: 0
  
  Aren't the "...in soviet russia" jokes more than played out now???? Srsly....
  You must be new here. In Soviet Russia, Natalie Portman grits you!
10. Re:Maybe it was IKEA? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 10:04 · Score: 0
  
  I'd like a beowulf cluster of that!
11. Re:Maybe it was IKEA? by NoisySplatter · 2012-11-26 11:20 · Score: 1
  
  I had to post in this thread because I have been using this sig for years.
  
  --
  In Soviet Russia meme tires of you!
12. Re:Maybe it was IKEA? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 11:22 · Score: 0
  
  If I point out that Correlation != Causation, will I be modded up to +5 insightful?
Re: Despite Reports Google Did Not Just Buy ICOA by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 07:40 · Score: 0

OK. The reports are that Google did not just buy ICOA, and then ....?
Pump and Dump by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 08:00 · Score: 0

The ol' pump & dump scam: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=81812177
This guy should be investigated as well.
Re: Despite Reports Google Did Not Just Buy ICOA by hpoul · 2012-11-26 08:55 · Score: 1

yeah, it's almost as interesting as news of a non-existing island found to be non existing.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Island_(New_Caledonia)

--
Find me at http://herbert.poul.at
Lame headline. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 09:51 · Score: 0

Since we are making things up.....here is a much better headline that is equally true.
"Google Did Not Just Buy Apple"
Some really shady shit going on right out in the o by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 10:47 · Score: 0

in the open, but this story is negative about Google, so there are 37 comments on it as of now.
Re:you Fai"l it. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 10:56 · Score: 0

This is suitable for work!
Little new here. by Ungrounded+Lightning · 2012-11-26 11:01 · Score: 1

Now we are seeing the advent of high tech pump and dump.
I agree with pretty much everything you said except for having a minor issue with this point.
High tech pump-and-dump has been with us for a while. It was a major component of the "dotcom bubble" and has even been operated successfully (until busted) by juveniles on the comment features of stock ticker websites (such as Yahoo's).
What is new (if it really is new, rather than just the first one widely reported) is doing the "pump" part by suckering PRWeb into publishing a blatant forgery.
PRWeb, a subsidiary of Vocus, is in business to publish, for a fee, press releases from company PR departments, as a way of bringing them to the attention of the media and other interested parties. While the content of the press releases is the responsibility of their customers, they do (or should) have a responsibility to vet that each release is actually from the company it purports to be from.

--
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Re:But still to be sued by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-26 13:16 · Score: 0

Of course some fucking cunt has to bring Apple into it.
The very mention of their name makes me want to throw up...
NEVER!!! by Giant+Electronic+Bra · 2012-11-26 15:07 · Score: 1

Isn't that the whole point, that there is no point? It is the whole pointlessness of the joke that makes it funny. You're SUPPOSED to roll your eyes.

--
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson