Robert MacMillan of Reuters writes Thursday that the Securities and Exchange Commission has approved a rule that allows companies to post news and information on blogs and Web sites, skipping traditional dissemination steps like press release distributors.
The change, writes MacMillan, means that Regulation Fair Disclosure could be violated. And it could cause other problems with how news is distributed.
MacMillan writes, “BusinessWire has embarked on a campaign to lobby against the guidelines. In a commentary distributed to industry publications, it said they ‘will lead to investor inequality and market inefficiencies, troubling trends for skittish retail investors, who place a premium on market fairness.’
“Thomson Reuters refrained from criticizing the rules.
“‘We support the free flow of information, champion innovation and continually monitor key websites for breaking news,’ a company spokesman said.
“‘At the same time, we recognize the risks of fragmentation of news flow and would want to guard against the possibility of erroneous or intentionally misleading information being disseminated to investors,’ he added.
“Dow Jones and Bloomberg officials were unavailable for comment.”
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