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Within an hour and a half this afternoon, we received a pair of "tips" slamming insiders at Salesforce.com for "looting" the company by exercising stock options. They both link to Salesforce's insider-trading chart which shows that insiders have cashed in more than $678 million in stock. That's roughly 10 percent of the company's $7 billion market capitalization, but our tipsters didn't pause to do that math. One writes:

Now the $678 million doesn't take into account the basis of the options grants but even if the average basis was 90% of what the stock was sold for the payoff for the insiders would still be greater than the actual amount of profits they have generated. Does this seem fair? This is absolutely outrageous but NOBODY is highlighting or talking about it.

If selling off shares is looting, then everyone in the Valley is a pirate. Yarrrrr! And last we checked, Salesforce.com shares have risen 276 percent since the IPO. I bet Yahoo shareholders wish they were getting looted like that right now.