Tweets, likes and follows: social media and the fair disclosure (Corporate Counsel, 10 Jan 2014) – Is tweeting considered Fair Disclosure? Have social rules changed the rules? The SEC says yes, but the landscape is new and the dust is still settling. Be careful. In April 2013, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) cleared public companies to use social media outlets such as Twitter® and Facebook® to announce key information in compliance with Regulation Fair Disclosure (Regulation FD), “so long as investors have been alerted about which social media will be used to disseminate such information.” However, the SEC’s guidance was general, leaving room for error. Some executives may be rightfully worried about those in their organizations with “itchy Twitter fingers,” while balancing a desire to communicate with shareholders and potential investors who are eager for information. Indeed, social media are essential channels in today’s world, and there is good reason to act prudently when using them to announce financial and other key information to investors. Some law firms, such as Philadelphia-based Pepper Hamilton LLP, recommend some best practices. A commentary posted on the firm’s corporate website shortly after the SEC guidance was released includes several key “Pepper Points” that are particularly instructive. For example * * *

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New industry contracts say “no data in the USA,” report says (GigaOM, 27 Dec 2013) – Is this the backlash? A handful of companies are requiring cloud service providers to promise – in writing – that they won’t store any client data in the United States, according to Bloomberg . The report says that a British grocery chain and a Canadian pharma company have responded to the ongoing US surveillance scandal by adding language to existing contracts that mandate suppliers to segment their data and keep it out of America. The report of the revised contracts comes as the cloud computing industry continues to digest news that America’s National Security Agency is tapping underwater cables and infiltrating the servers of storage providers as part of a sweeping counter-terrorism program. In August, shortly after news of the surveillance was leaked by Edward Snowden, a Forrester analyst reported that it could cost the U.S. cloud computing industry up to $180 billion as a result of foreign firms bolting American providers. The $180 billion figure (which appears plucked from the air) was cited as a worst case scenario and so far there has been no systemic exodus from American cloud companies. But the fear and anger in Europe and elsewhere over America’s surveillance activities are very real; a recent PWC report said that 15 percent of German companies are looking for cloud providers that promise not to cooperate with U.S. or U.K. intelligence services. So does the Bloomberg report portend the start of a trend? It’s too soon to say. The report, which also claimed a Canadian agency had asked for the “no data in USA” clause, was based on a single source (an Indiana security firm known as Rook Consulting ) and did not name any of the companies involved.

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Voxgov aggregates and analyzes government news and media (Robert Ambrogi, 27 Dec 2013) – Keeping track of an issue within the U.S. government can be daunting. The government is gargantuan, with thousands of entities publishing a constant flow of news and information across many thousands of websites and social media platforms. Say you have a client who has an interest in food labeling law. To track everything concerning food labeling that the government is putting out through press releases and policy statements and speeches and through Twitter and Facebook and YouTube would be a full-time job, if even that would get it done. A new web platform developed by a lawyer, Voxgov , aims to make it easy for users to track and analyze this constant flow of U.S. government news and media. It describes its mission as becoming “the established site of record for unedited media, news and information from all official government sources.” What that means is that it aggregates in real time all the information flowing out of the federal government and delivers it to you in a single platform. If the Federal Trade Commission posts a press release, it shows up in Voxgov within three minutes, they say. Voxgov came out in beta six months ago. It will formally launch out of beta on Jan. 6. And while it currently collects only federal government information, it plans to add all 50 states by the end of March.

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9th Circuit to provide live Internet coverage of en banc oral arguments (ABA Journal, 4 Dec 2013) – In what is believed to be the first such effort by a federal appeals court, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will launch live streaming Internet coverage of its en banc oral arguments in San Francisco on Monday. “The 9th Circuit has a long history of using advances in technology to make the court more accessible and transparent,” said Chief Judge Alex Kozinski said in a written statement provided to Courthouse News . “Video streaming is a way to open the court’s doors even wider so that more people can see and hear what transpires in the courtroom, particularly in regard to some of our most important cases.” A page on the court’s website provides further details.

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