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EDGAR Database
- To: announce@radio.com
- Subject: EDGAR Database
- From: Carl Malamud <carl@trystero.malamud.com>
- Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 22:09:21 -0400
- Org: Internet Multicasting Service
INTERNET TOWN HALL
SEC EDGAR DATABASE TO BE MADE FREELY AVAILABLE ON INTERNET COMPUTER NETWORK
For Immediate Release
For More Information: Internet Multicasting Service Carl Malamud, +1-202-628-2044, carl@town.hall.org
New York University Stern School of Business Professor Ajit Kambil, +1-212-998-0843, akambil@rnd.stern.nyu.edu
The Internet Multicasting Service, in conjunction with the New York University Stern School of Business, is pleased to announce that we will be participating in a project sponsored by the National Science Foundation to provide access on the global Internet computer network to the Security and Exchange Commission's EDGAR Database.
EDGAR is an on-line filing system mandated by the SEC for America's largest corporations and includes documents such as the 10-K and 10-Q reports required of corporations on the New York and American stock exchanges, filings by companies trading over the counter, and a variety of other registration statements, ownership reports, and annual and quarterly reports. In other words, the EDGAR Database contains key public disclosure information needed by consumers, journalists, researchers, and workers in the financial services industries.
Mead Data Central operates the EDGAR Dissemination Service, the method by which the SEC makes data available to the public. Mead Data Central acts as a "data wholesaler," providing a variety of data feeds to the retail information industry. Mead Data Central, in addition to its role as a data wholesaler, is a key participant in the information retail market and includes as its customers leading government and industrial organizations, including the SEC. Internet-based access will be an alternative outlet for EDGAR data, supplementing and complementing the current retail outlets.
Today's announcement is significant in that the key public disclosure information contained in EDGAR will, for the first time, become available to the general public over the global Internet computer network. The Internet is a "network of networks" that spans 140 countries and includes 20 million people. The Internet, growing at the exponential rate of 20 percent per month, is one of the key strategic areas in the Clinton Administration's National Information Infrastructure proposals. The Internet is extensively used for the dissemination of public information by government groups that include the National Science Foundation, NASA, the US Geological Survey, the Library of Congress, ARPA, the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce, and a growing number of other agencies and departments.
This project has two key goals. First, it is a demonstration project to provide concrete guidance and techniques on how large government public data archives can be made available to the general public on the Internet. New York University and the Internet Multicasting Service will develop software and procedures to process the EDGAR data, converting it into a form suitable for Internet dissemination. The project participants will write reports and give seminars to give government agencies the opportunity to transfer in-house the knowledge we acquire in the course of the project.
Second, the project has the goal of developing new techniques for accessing and disseminating data. Graduate and undergraduate students will develop techniques that will allow data consumers quick and easy access to the information they are looking for. The techniques will include automatically generated indices, aggregate and summary information, and other value-added information that will make the system more useful to both the general public and those in the financial and related industries.
People connected to the Internet will be able to use a variety of different techniques for accessing the information in EDGAR. An "electronic mail server" will allow the user to send e-mail with a request and receive back automatically a document. A file transfer system will allow the user to take entire documents or sets of documents and transfer them back to their home computer. More advanced browsing techniques will include a hypertext interface using a publicly-available system called the World Wide Web, a publicly-available keyword searching interface called WAIS, a publicly-available data navigation tool called Gopher, and a real-time data broadcasting mechanism using publicly-available software based on a dissemination technology called multicasting.
This project is part of a broad trend whereby public institutions are posting their information on the Internet, forming a vast, distributed global library. This library includes, to name just a few examples, collections from art museums, tours of botanical gardens, weather maps, traffic reports, and a wealth of government-produced information. Adding a key financial database such as EDGAR will help contribute one more piece to the vision of a national information superhighway spelled out by President Clinton and Vice President Gore in their landmark proposals for a National Information Infrastructure.
The project participants would like to thank the National Science Foundation for their support in this project and to commend the leadership role of Congressman Edward J. Markey who brought the project participants together and helped us to forge a workable solution to a complex problem.
The New York University's Stern School of Business is one of the nation's leading business schools, with both Information Systems and Finance departments ranked among the top ten nationwide in terms of research and scholarship. The school, faculty, and students have excellent relations with, and are very knowledgeable about, the financial services industry.
The Internet Multicasting Service is a non-profit corporation located in Washington, D.C. which specializes in information dissemination on the Internet. The Internet Multicasting Service is best known for operating the first "radio" station in cyberspace, allowing 100,000 people in 30 countries to listen to National Press Club Luncheons, NPR programs, and other programs while sitting at their computers.
The Internet Multicasting Service gratefully acknowledges substantial additional contributions of equipment and services to make this project possible from Sun Microsystems, MFS Datanet, and UUNET Technologies.
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