This is a very similar to the approach that Business Wire and other XBRL US Inc. members (mostly accounting and systems firms) have taken with XBRL. While they SAY that they want to make accessing and comparison of financial data easier for investors, their implementation actually tries to create more demand for their services while also preventing any better, cheaper and easier implementations from taking hold. I had hoped that the SEC would be looking out for investors interests over accounting and systems industry lobbying but sadly, this is not the case. XBRL could be an amazing technology for the improvement of disclosure for investors but it’s all in the implementation and the XBRL US Inc. consortium purposefully designed the implementation it was contracted to create for the SEC to most benefit its member services rather than investors. (note: BusinessWire is a leading member of the XBRL consortium but it was actually the accounting system company members that designed the implementation.)

Eric P. Linder, CFA

RT @irbloggers: Business Wire’s double standards (via Investor Relations Blog) [link to post]

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