We all know Google for the information blackhole that it wants to be. Google sucks up all indexable knowledge from webpages, books, videos, your desktop and whatever media / database that it can get its hands on. However, Google is also the company who while claiming to “do no evil”, willingly censors information in order to break into the China markets. You can see what I mean by searching for “tiananmen” in Google Images here and its China counterpart here.

I’m not here to argue whether Google is a saint or a devil in disguise, or whether its merely doing no evil according to local contexts. But it begs the question of what Google Finance (a relatively new Google service) does with its data? Beyond the much raved about gimmicky interface, the bottom line for researching using Google is the integrity of its data. Here’s a case (with screenshots) proving that Google Finance is showing the wrong incomplete data, or is it consciously participating in censoring activity?

How The Investigation Started
I was reading a investment article by my favourite fund manager, Irwin Michael this morning. Irwin recently analysed a stock pick that he noticed — Keynote Systems. Irwin told the tale of how the stock traded in the 100s during the tech bubble without any earnings, survived the bubble burst to only trade around the 10s when it is now showing actual tangible earnings. If this story isn’t proof that the general market is neither efficient nor right all the time, I don’t know what is.

But rather than blindly listening to any analyst, whether they are my favourite or not, I will also do my research. So I started out with Google Finance because I love its simple interface. I was not able to corroberate Irwin’s story because this is the chart that Google Finance showed me when I ask for the maximum data possible.

To be sure, I quickly check with Yahoo Finance, here’s their chart:

Conspiracy Theories
Please remember that these are my personal theories and are not backed by any facts except the ones presented in this article thus far. I hope that previous statement will keep the Google lawyers away. But isn’t it plausible that companies can pay Google to make as if their undesirable past history — the tech bubble burst, never happened? This practice would certainly paint a better picture for potential investors who only check with Google Finance. Does Google bending the rules when it comes to displaying the whole truth sound ludicrous? They’ve done it for China, what’s to say that they haven’t done it for Keynote Systems?

What are your thoughts on this situation? Is it mere coincidence, overblown imagination? I would absolutely offer Google or Keynote Systems a forum to voice their side of the story here as well. It could simply be an honest mistake, because Google Finance is still in Beta.

P.S. Though I was quickly corrected that Google (that’s why I love blogs, I’m learning all the time too!) only publishes 5 years worth of information for every security. I still think there’s merit in discussing why they are doing only 5 years worth and labelling it as “maximum”. With the resources at Google’s disposal, getting the entire history is not a big obstacle, why consciously decide to start from that chosen time period? Is Google helping us by not telling us which companies are dot com companies that have fallen from grace? Is there no validity in showing pre-2001 information?