Google is just not playing nicely anymore, are they? (If you missed that post read it now - it's about Google's cover-up of a cover-up of a cover-up. In fact, that story is still getting more interesting by the day.)

In my latest "it happened before my eyes" moment I visited one of my favorite anti-Google blogs today and saw a comment from someone mentioning Google's stock price is down $20 so I immediately visited Google to verify that, since they display their own stock quote when you type "google" into your Firefox search bar or into the search box on google.com. This was the first result I got:

There was the usual button you click to "Show stock quote for GOOG". So I clicked it and - wait for it...nothing happened! Oh, the page expanded as usual to make room for the quote but the quote never showed up. Ha ha - this was too funny. So I closed and re-expanded the quote box 10 more times just to make sure my eyes weren't failing me.

Within the one minute it took me to switch browsers and hide my IP and user agent with this service - just to ensure an authentic search result - Google removed the button and Javascript for "show stock quote for GOOG" altogether.

Now that Google has missed (arguably, I'll agree) two quarters in a row and is failing as a company they have removed the button and the quote box. That'll do the trick, won't it? After all (Google reasons) people are too lazy and too stupid to actually look the quote up if they refuse to put it on the page - right? Well, sucks for them, doesn't it, that I'm not too lazy or too stupid?

Anyhow, I've heard AOL Finance is really good - and yes, I'm just kidding. I was always a big fan of Yahoo! Finance, so I'll use them to watch Google continue to spiral into the dust of big companies gone south, which according to me and at least a few others, is exactly where Google's stock belongs.

Long live Yahoo! They will probably buy Google soon enough - well, maybe not. Maybe Yahoo!, AOL, and Microsoft will collectively acquire Google through a hostile takeover. Is that too much to ask?

Update 7-23: Just checked Google for stock quotes again for the first time in a day or two and the button to click for Google's stock quote is back now when you type in "Google" - and it's back for the names of other major companies now, too. As discussed in the comments, you could still get a stock price as the first result - if you knew the company's "ticker"; now you don't have to - just like old times you can simply type in the name of the company to get the quote. Between this and what they're pulling with results for "firefox 3 sucks" my head is almost spinning. It's like watching a really bad magician - now you see it - ha ha - now you don't.