When Google announced the new Nexus 7 last week, they said the old model was the best selling tablet in Japan during the holiday season. That’s a pretty bold statement when you consider how massively successful the iPad is. So some people started digging around, and apparently Google lied.

The study Google used to make their claim came from a Japanese research firm called BCN. Said firm, according to Apple Insider, only tracked 16% of all tablet sales in the country. BCN didn’t track tablet sales from Apple Stores, nor did they track sales from the countries two biggest wireless operators.

What’s the lesson here? You can make a chart show you just about damn near anything, it’s when you have all the data and a detailed breakdown of the methodology used to gather said data that you can start drawing accurate conclusions.

You’ve probably seen several Android sites cover the news that Samsung smartphones leave American consumers feeling more satisfied than Apple’s iPhones. I purposefully didn’t cover that story for the exact reasons listed above. The sample size wasn’t reported, and there wasn’t an explanation of how the data was collected. Without those, the study’s numbers are meaningless to me.