Regulator plans roundtable talks to review “interactive data” pilot program. The Securities and Exchange Commission says it wants to include new Internet tools to help investors and analysts sift through company and fund filings for specific financial information. To help that along, the securities regulator plans to host several invitation-only roundtables this year at its headquarters in Washington, D.C.

“It is now within our reach to get dramatically more useful information in the hands of investors,” says SEC chairman Christopher Cox. “We look forward to these discussions on implementing interactive data initiatives that can benefit investors as quickly as possible.”

Page search for dummies

The roundtables are meant to review the first year of a pilot program, begun in 2005, using “interactive data” for SEC filings by about a dozen companies that volunteered to take part. “Interactive data permits Internet users to search for and use individual items of information from financial reports, such as net income, executive compensation, or mutual fund expenses,” according to an SEC press release. “Today even computer-based financial information is generally presented in the form of entire pages of data that can't easily be separated.”

Roundtable discussion topics will include what investors and analysts are looking for in the new world of interactive data, how to accelerate the use of new software that permits the dissemination of interactive financial data, and how best to design the SEC's requirements for company disclosures to take maximum advantage of the potential of interactive data.

Among those who will be invited to the roundtable discussions are representatives of investors, issuing companies, auditors, analysts, technology professionals and other regulators.

The first roundtable in the series will be held on 12 June from 10:00 a.m. through noon. Subsequent roundtable discussions will be held this coming summer and fall.

By that time perhaps someone will have told the SEC that people have been pinpointing web-based alpha-numeric data for the past 15 years using the “Find” feature in the “Edit” function of most Internet browsers. –FWR

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