With the ongoing bidding war between Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) for technology storage company 3Par (NYSE: PAR) among a plethora of recent M&A deals, many have been speculating on what companies might be next on the acquisition block.

Foolish colleague Rick Aristotle Munarriz made a great argument for Akamai (Nasdaq: AKAM) as a possible takeover target. The content delivery network provider saw a 9% share price pop last week on unusual volume as call option activity in the stock suggested that someone might know something they shouldn't.

While some people definitely know something that outsiders don't, those people would be company insiders who purchased more than $3.6 million worth of shares, according to recent SEC filings. Akamai's CEO Paul Sagan along with President David Kenny, and Director Peter Knight were the insiders who purchased shares.

While this news is certainly good for investors, as it shows that management feels strongly about the company's future growth, it also means Akamai has probably not been in talks with other companies about a possible acquisition -- at least, unless talks began heating up in a hurry during recent weeks.

If these executives had been privy to acquisition talks recently, their share purchases would be under heavy scrutiny by the SEC and would most likely be considered insider trading and subject to significant penalties.

This is not to say the company won't enter acquisition talks in the future, but these recent insider purchases should be a sign that a deal's not in the works for Akamai ... yet.