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Posts Tagged “
Monster
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backdating
Former Monster president charged with winkling $13.5 million from shareholders
Federal prosecutors allege former Monster.com president and COO James Treacy bolstered the value of his company stock options through illegal backdating, which is when executives retroactively fix the books so it looks like they were granted company shares at a lower value than where they actually traed, increasing their take when they sell. Treacy received a total of $23 million exercising his company stock options but about $13.5 million came from "the in-the-money portion of backdated option grants," prosecutors allege. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed seperate charges against Treacy. "Mr. Treacy is completely innocent of these charges and looks forward to being vindicated at trial," his lawyer told the WSJ. And really, how can you not trust a mug like his?
stocks
These tech stocks leave you exposed to today's bad news
On Friday, Citigroup's Mark Mahaney judged tech stocks on four criteria: International exposure, countercyclical hedges, least risk to 2008 Wall Street estimates and intrinsic valuation. Which means what? Dunno. Go to Seeking Alpha for that. But to find out if your company's on the OK or Not-So-OK list in light of this morning's Fed rate cut and stock-market dive, check out this list. More »
monster
Safe to say that your data is not safe
After stalling for five days before addressing the theft of 1.3 million user profiles, executives at the job site Monster now admits the theft may have occurred earlier and been more extensive, but they still do not know: "We're assuming it is a large number. It could easily be in the millions," CEO Sal Iannuzzi told Reuters. "To be safe, he said, each Monster.com user should assume that his or her contact information has been taken." Yes, it is safe to assume a Monster user profile is not safe.
"Monster.com waited five days to tell its users about a security breach that resulted in the theft of confidential information from some 1.3 million job seekers," reports Reuters. It wasn't until after computer security firm Symantec issued a warning that Monster took action. If no one knows about it, it's apparently not a problem. [Boing Boing]
Monster's initial, capricious response to a phishing attack targeted at users of the job site: "In fact, the information that is gathered from Monster is no different than that displayed in a phone book." Two days later, "Monster respects your privacy and understands the risk involved in making your personal information public" as it finally responds to halt the flow of user data and bad PR. [PC World]
Monster CFO Chris Power resigned on Friday, according to an SEC document filed today. No word on a replacement, or why Power resigned. [Silicon Alley Insider]
monster
Who's Gonna Buy Monster?
CONFONZ — That damn Monster is still outside your house, peeking in the windows. Every once in a while, it knocks on the window and quietly suggests that you need a new job. Well, it seems as though that Monster's got its own window knockers, and they're carrying cash. Earlier this week, the dot com's stock price leapt up like frogs in a dynamite pond. All over rumors of an impending buyer. After the jump, we look at the most recent round of rumored ruffian buyers. More »
nytimes
News notes: Here be one less monster
- The former CEO of Monster.com, who already stepped down from that post and as board chairman over the industry-wide stock option backdating scandal, just lost his seat on the board as well. Monster announced Andrew McKelvey's resignation from the board this morning. [Washington Post]
- Spot Runner, an ad company that sells generic cut-and-paste TV commercials, took $40 million in funding. With a business-to-business product that can run under a hundred bucks, it's a mystery how this company will become profitable — so this $40-million investor debt may save the world from a hegemony of excruciatingly dull stock-footage ads. [LA Times]
- The New York Times searches for an exciting description of the wild dot-com boom. It fails. "The words 'Internet' and 'bust' were rarely used in the same sentence." [NY Times]
- A VP at Nielsen NetRatings searches for a non-asinine summary of why companies are finally demanding reliable web traffic stats. He fails. "When you grow up, you have to do certain things." [NY Times]
- Former CIA agent and Open Source Solutions, Inc. founder accuses Google of working with the CIA. It's not the first time someone's alleged Google is secretly cooperating with federal agents. [Disgrunt via Good Morning Silicon Valley]
