Mamma.com is a search engine that’s simply not making it (an impossible game nowadays). Mark Cuban is a multi-billionaire that’s simply making it. Mark owns Dallas maverick NBA team, an HDTV cable network, HDNet and few other successful ventures that push his worth to nine digits. Today however, Mark Cuban was charged with insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in connection with sales of Mamma.com shares. This is how it went down:

Mark Cuban purchased the stock of Mamma.com – a search engine that appeared to have potential but this game is firmly dominated by Google, Yahoo and MSN. Everyone else is simply out of on-line search game. Mamma.com, despite what seemed as potential, didn’t make it anywhere. The traffic to Mamma.com dropped 66% within a span of last year which clearly showed that the website is a big loss. Mark Cuban first purchased Mamma.com stocks because he thought it was gonna be the next big thing and with low overhead it had, the purchase seemed solid. Now it appears as though Mark Cuban has used his insider information and got rid of Mamma.com stock just before it dropped avoiding approximately $250k in losses he’d have to incur had he not have the insider information.

This is what Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) refers to as Insider trading and this is what Mark Cuban is charged with. Mark Cuban allegedly sold his 600,000 shares after he learned that Mamma.com was going to offer new stock for sale. This offer would dilute the value of shares he owned so he liquidated them, committing insider trading crime.