| SEEMINGLY
IT WAS A DONE DEAL. In 1989 Mead Data Central (now LEXIS-NEXIS)
and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission entered into contract
to disseminate SEC electronic data for profit.
Yet neither party anticipated a grass-roots movement powered by librarians,
Ralph Nader activists, the press and others that would eventually kill
the 1989 contract and open free access to Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis
and Retrieval, or EDGAR (http://www.sec.gov/edgarhp.htm).
A 1993 pilot project that followed providing Internet EDGAR access has
become one of the planet's great databases on company activities, financial
data and executive compensation. And now the SEC has announced a $22.4
million contract awarded to BDM International Inc. for a three-year modernization
of EDGAR. Still, the U.S. government may get left behind by the private
sector. EDGAR data is continually being re-packaged and distributed on
commercial Web sites, often in innovative ways.
The Internet Prospector presents
the following reviews of leading services to help researchers evaluate
the growing family of EDGAR Web sites. Included is the SEC, the patriarch,
as well as its close cousins, EDGAR Online, EDGAR NYU, FreeEDGAR.
FORWARD to EDGAR Reviews
FORWARD to EDGAR Comparison
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