CEO Larry Page (left) became a punchline today. (bpedro/Flickr)

As the Wall Street Journal reports, Google's financial printing provider, R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., accidentally filed a draft version of Google's quarterly earnings with the SEC in the middle of the trading day, surprising both markets and Google executives and kicking off a massive sell-off that sent the stock down 9 percent in short order before trading was suspended.

Google eventually released its official earnings statement later in the day, with CEO Larry Page apologizing to investors on the conference call about the error.

Page had become an instant punchline after the earnings mishap, as the draft statement filed contained a placeholder for a Page comment labeled "PENDING LARRY QUOTE".

R.R. Donnelly took responsibility for the premature release and promised to get to the bottom of the embarrassing error, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"In a statement, R.R. Donnelly said it was 'fully engaged in an investigation to determine how this event took place and are pursuing our first obligation—which is to serve our valued customer.'

The Google filing was sent early due to human error, rather than a systems problem, said R.R. Donnelley CEO Tom Quinlan in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. The company is still investigating what went wrong, he said."

As people increasingly access the internet through mobile devices as opposed to laptop and desktop computers, internet companies who earn revenue almost exclusively through advertising, such as Google and Facebook, have found it challenging to monetize mobile advertisements at the same rate. Investor uncertainty about the viability of mobile ads has been a major factor in depressing the share price of Facebook, and may explain why shareholders were so quick to dump a stock that has been as successful as Google after one weak report.

Reach Executive Producer Matt Pressberg here.