Google inadvertently published outdated revenue and profit projections on its Web site after last week's meeting with Wall Street analysts, the company said in a regulatory filing .
But it stood by its refusal to issue financial projections.
The previously undisclosed presentation notes stated that Google's core advertising business was expected to grow by nearly 60 per cent to $9.5 billion in 2006 but that profit margins in its mainstay AdSense business could be squeezed this year and beyond.
AdSense is an advertising program through which Google offers its pay-per-click Web search advertising system to Web publishers such as America Online or Ask.com to sell search-based advertising on their own sites.
Following its annual Analyst Day presentation for Wall Street at its Silicon Valley headquarters last Thursday, Google published, then retracted, a massive document containing slides with "speaker's notes" on product plans and financial targets.
The document came to light when blogger Greg Linden of Seattle picked up details from it.
According to a number of bloggers who captured the original presentation, it also described an unannounced plan to offer online storage to Web users, creating a mirror image of consumer hard drives.
The bloggers said the original presentation stated: "With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc)."
Google's decision not to issue earnings guidance has irked many Wall Street analysts who blame much of the volatility of Google's share price on the lack of transparency.
Google spokeswoman Lynn Fox said hat the company did not have any further comments on this topic.
However, on Monday Fox confirmed the existence of the notes that were on the company's Web site but declined to comment on details contained in them. Google replaced the withdrawn notes with a 94-page version of the slides in another format that had been cleansed of the notes.