So I had a little free time on this Saturday, so I finally took a moment to try to figure out why my old daily portfolio emails from quote.com had stopped coming...only to find that I couldn't seem to log in to quote.com anymore. In fact, there was no indication on their front page that they even HAD users anymore. Thinking that such a longstanding site (I probably registered with them in, like, 1998 or 1999 when they were just starting up and hiring friends away from the ISP I was working at) suddenly eliminating users would have ben reported on by somebody, I went to Google to see what I could see. I came up empty.
My last email from quote.com arrived back on 7/5. Poking around some more led me to the Wikipedia page for Quote.com, where an unattributed sentence had been added on (not coincidentally?) 7/5:
On June 30, 2011, BlueWave Advisors, LLC, purchased Quote.com.
With a new set of keywords to work with, I went back to the search sites, and I found ANOTHER page, still branded with the Quote.com logo, on the website of eSignal. (A provider of real time stock information, eSignal - who still advertise on Raging Bull - is a product of Interactive Data Corporation, the company who bought Quote from Lycos - at the time, a subsidiary of Korean web portal Daum - back in 2006):
Originally posted by eSignal (esignal.com)We invite you to visit these financial sites...
Quote.com
RagingBull.com
As of June 30, 2011, these sites were puchased by BlueWave Advisors, LLC.
Their one page website offers: "BlueWave Advisors is a strategic consulting firm specializing in developing and building investor awareness throughout the small cap market." That looks to be a wordy way of saying they pump penny stocks, and it doesn't take too many web searchers to determine that they're behind such confidence-inspiring groups such as Beacon Equity (beaconequity.com), Investors Soup (investorsoup.com), Hot Penny Stocks Finder (thehotpennystocks.com), Micro Stock Profit (microstockprofit.com), PennyStockCraze.com, StockPreacher (stockpreacher.com), Dividend Stocks (dividendstocksnow.com), and the list goes on and on - fortunately they're good enough to use the same disclaimer every time (google.com), which is probably a reason they might still be in business, as opposed to, say, up for securities fraud.
Now, I like to think I'm a decent researcher - I came up with all that stuff up there pretty quickly - but the thing I could NOT find, and STILL can't find, is any mainstream media outlet or website which has done any reporting on this story.
My own personal reasons for thinking this is a big deal:
1. The Quote and Raging Bull brands may still carry some gravitas amongst old-timey Internetters like myself and the fact that they're in the hands of what appears to be some shady penny stock pumping PR firm should be better publicised
2. More concerning, what the heck happened to all the user data of quote.com going back almost 20 years? What's up with the CURRENT user data of the Raging Bull message boards? Are posters to their message boards (ragingbull.quote.com) even aware of the change of ownership? I sure didn't get any notification or emails. I'll bet all this personally identifiable financial information has a lot - A LOT - of value, and I shudder to think that it's in the hands of people primarily in the business of telling you about hot penny stocks...especially if nobody knows about it!
So...that's what I have. I'm not an investigative journalist, but I occasionally play one on the Internet. What I'd REALLY like is for a REAL journalist to pick up this story. Anybody up to it?
Me, I guess I'll do what I probably should have done many years ago and see if eTrade will start sending me update emails like Quote did. (I suspect they will.)
Originally posted by CRZSo...that's what I have. I'm not an investigative journalist, but I occasionally play one on the Internet. What I'd REALLY like is for a REAL journalist to pick up this story. Anybody up to it?
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You wanted the best, you got... the Out of Context Quote of the Week.
"£8.70 for a measly 16 out of your average fag machine." (dMr)
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