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Stock market issue. Before Jan 06 on SEDAR, investors looking at Canada's public company web financial filings did not have to agree to a terms of use, and enter a captcha [a sequence of letters and numbers, a security code] to gain access to Canada's public company accounting materials. [This was not a decision of securities regulators, nor the government.]
SEDAR not up holding the right -- by hindering an important line of stock market communicaiton (net links to specific accounting oddities and goodies) for investors to highlight accounting issues -- and by hindering public companies making net links to their own filings.
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COPY of webpage detailing SEDAR issue:
http://www.irwebreport.com/perspectives/2006/feb/sedars-captcha.htm
(google search -- "sedar breach" -- to also get page. Issue with retrieving web link.)
""""""""""""""""Investors now have to type in a security code (known as a captcha) before they can access any filing.
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| The new code screen implemented in early 2006 creates an additional and unnecessary barrier. |
While this might seem like a small irritant, it is not. It is another reason for investors and public companies to avoid making use of Canada’s SEDAR repository, which is outsourced to the Canadian Depository for Securities (CDS), a private company controlled by Canada’s banks and investment dealers, but regulated by the country’s securities commissions and its central bank.
When you add the captcha requirement to the fact that all SEDAR filings are hard to use in the first place because they’re in PDF Blobs, then this additional barrier to information is one more reason for investors to avoid using SEDAR.
The new requirement also acts as a disincentive for companies to provide direct links to individual filings. Such links save investors the time of digging through reams of poorly labeled and unsorted files in the regulatory database to find documents like prospectuses.
What is baffling is that there is no good reason for the captcha requirement. It is purely a tactic to protect CDS. They are making their own internal issues everyone else's problem.
Like registration requirements, captchas should only be implemented when users want to obtain a priviledge or benefit, such as to post a public comment or to obtain something they are not automatically entitled to. They should never be used when users have a right to the information or service.
SEDAR is part of the investor protection system in Canada. It should be an open, accessible and public database. Rather than hamper access by disallowing direct links to filings and putting up barriers to access through security codes and poor formats, Canadian regulators should be forcing CDS to do everything possible to broaden SEDAR’s appeal and flexibility.
CDS has bungled this project several times over the years. Each time, the problem is the same. CDS puts its own misguided commercial sentiments ahead of the investor protection objectives of the repository. They should be fired from the job of maintaining SEDAR or be brought back into line by the regulators.
If you have links on your website to invidual SEDAR filings, you should check that they still work. Since CDS made the changes, some links may be leading to a warning page on SEDAR that implies you and your site’s users may be doing something illegal.
This is the notice we got when we tried to access a prospectus directly from TD Bank’s IR Website recently:
ACCESS DENIED |
CDS INC. (CDS) operates the SEDAR.com Web site on behalf of the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA). CDS analyses SEDAR Web site utilization on a regular basis. The IP address registered to you and/or your company exhibits what CDS considers to be excessive and unauthorized use of the SEDAR Web site. CDS has three main concerns, one or more of which apply to the activity engaged in by this IP address: * that this activity may have a damaging impact on service to members of the public and other intended users CDS must ensure that the SEDAR data and information entrusted to us is put to its intended use, and that we maintain our required levels of service and security for members of the public and regulatory authorities alike. If you wish to discuss continued access to the SEDAR Web site and SEDAR data, or if you wish to receive a copy of the full Terms & Conditions of Use, please contact David Scott at dscott@cds.ca. |
Yikes! And we just wanted to access an original prospectus.
If your site links to individual documents on SEDAR, then move those documents to your own server rather than force people to go through the repository's security code process.
In this age of electronic communication, and with other regulators in the U.S., Europe and Japan, talking about implementing advanced technologies like XBRL, it is high time Canada's regulators took the Web seriously."""""""""""""
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