Page Freezer Blog

An award-winning global provider of foreign exchange (forex) trading services, one of the largest in the industry, has selected PageFreezer as their solution to archive company websites for regulatory compliance and litigation preparedness.  This will include the archiving of online discussion forums, Facebook pages, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.  Listed on the NYSE since 2010, the firm strives to maintain transparent and compliant business practices.  PageFreezer’s services will assist them in preserving a careful record of the corporate web presence, with archives that stand as non-refutable digital evidence in court. 

As a vocal advocate of foreign exchange regulation and increased investor protection, our new client is one of the first forex firms to register as a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) following the passage of the Commodity Modernization Act in December 2000.  As such, the company is subject to strict financial standards and oversight by regulators.  PageFreezer’s archiving of websites and social media will allow the company to maintain complete, searchable, admissible records of their online activity, making it simple to quickly provide regulators or legal counsel with requested information.

Online records retention has become a pressing matter for the financial industry, especially within the U.S. regulatory framework, widely regarded as one of the best in the world for investor protection.  Stringent retention requirements imposed by the FINRA, SEC, and other regulators, combined with increasing amounts of online communication and marketing, has caused many companies to search for robust archiving solutions for their Internet content.  Lawsuits and investigations, common in the financial industry, can be resolved more quickly and smoothly for companies that keep careful records of all online activity, including social media and discussion forums.

PageFreezer’s industry-leading archiving solutions have already provided a number of financial organizations with the peace of mind that their electronic records are being backed up automatically, in compliance with regulations.  We are confident that our new client will benefit from the worry-free archiving of their online presence, and pleased that they have chosen PageFreezer to provide this service.

Across the world, new ideas and products are constantly making a bid for the attention of consumers, corporations, or governments.  Sifting through the latest developments in Media, Communications, and High Tech is the global management consulting company Accenture, selecting the most stunning concepts in the European market for recognition in the 2011 Accenture Innovation Awards. 

We were honored to present PageFreezer’s cutting-edge archiving solutions for consideration before a panel of judges that boasted some of the biggest names in the digital landscape.  Website and social media archiving is a market trend that will only continue to grow as companies search for retention solutions that help them preserve, organize, and use their digital records for litigation preparedness or regulatory compliance.  PageFreezer is industry-leading in many aspects of website archiving.

With over 580 concepts being considered this year, we are thrilled to be among the top 10 finalists in the competition!  It takes a unique solution with vast success potential to stand out among so many worthy applicants, but PageFreezer has risen to the challenge by meeting the criteria:

Innovative Concept:  We are constantly taking website and social media archiving to the next level.  PageFreezer makes innovation a priority with frequent updates to enable the most comprehensive, secure archiving using cutting-edge technology.

Potential Market:  Our scalability is virtually limitless.  For individuals, government agencies, and companies in every industry, the retention of online records continues to become a higher priority as electronic data increases and grows more complex.  No customer is too big or too small — PageFreezer can archive hundreds of websites per week for big corporations, or just a few URLs per month.

Proof of Success:  Numerous companies in various industries are using PageFreezer to archive their online content, and more are signing up.  World-famous brands are trusting their records to us, and we take that responsibility seriously by providing archives that stand up as digital evidence in court.  Our services take the pain out of website archiving, and provide the peace of mind that comes with having secure, searchable online records that meet regulatory requirements.

With past winners like Myngle, Layar, and TenPages.com, the Accenture Innovation Awards have proven to be a valuable platform for great concepts in the Media, Communications, and Tech industry.  We are proud to have made it this far in the competition, and look forward to the results of the finals on October 11th.

To be continued…

Comprehensive archiving of Twitter activity will benefit companies concerned with regulatory compliance.

PageFreezer.com announces extended features for comprehensive archiving of activity on Twitter, a development that will be valuable for companies striving to comply with records retention laws and litigation preparedness.  The enhanced support ensures a more complete representation of Twitter content than the archiving industry typically provides, and the archives meet legal standards for electronic evidence in court.

Industries that can benefit from comprehensive social media archiving include Finance, Pharma, Food, and publicly traded companies. Various requirements from regulatory bodies demand that organizations retain perfect, complete copies of business records, which is challenging for online content and especially for activity on social media sites like Twitter.

Some of PageFreezer’s enhanced features for Twitter archiving include:

• Archiving of both public profiles and private communications, such as “Direct Messages”
• Ability to archive hashtags and search keywords, so companies can preserve the full conversation surrounding their brand or a particular topic
• Digital timestamp and signature provided for each archived page, ensuring the verifiability of Twitter archives as electronic evidence in court
• Support for the legal hold process
• Archiving of the full visual Twitter User Experience and live interaction

Most archiving solutions for capturing Twitter content rely on the Twitter API, resulting in only capturing the single “tweets”. PageFreezer offers a broader and more comprehensive interactive representation of the full visual Twitter presence, including background, images, followers, and mentions.  This is valuable to capture the full discussion thread and in legal situations where the full visual context of Twitter activity may be relevant, not just a single tweet pulled from the API.

PageFreezer is the first archiving service to provide support for Twitter content to be used as admissible electronic evidence in court.  Since PageFreezer marks each archived page with a unique 256-bit digital timestamp and signature, the records are considered “non-refutable” and meet the legal requirements for data integrity and authenticity.  This could have an impact on the way companies approach social media, which has generally been considered risky from a regulatory standpoint.

“These new capabilities for Twitter archiving are going to change the way organizations view their social media presence,” said Michael Riedyk, Executive Director with PageFreezer.  “There’s been a lot of concerned discussion about the regulatory and legal risks involved with using Twitter for business communications, but the ability to accurately preserve this content really makes a difference.”

The debate surrounding the use of social media for marketing and business communications, in addition to enforcement actions by regulators, has highlighted the need for solutions that can reconcile existing record retention laws with advanced Internet technologies.  PageFreezer is actively addressing this need by providing extensive support for the capture and storage of Twitter content.

Financial companies and brokers can ensure compliance by archiving social media activity.

PageFreezer.com, a leading cloud solution for preservation of dynamic web content, has announced capability for capturing and storing social media and blog activity.  This feature appeals to securities traders, registered representatives (RIAs), banks, and others in the financial services sector due to recent advisement by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) that even social media content can be considered “business as such” and falls under regulatory requirements for record-keeping.

In the regulatory notice concerning blogs and social networking sites, FINRA stated that firms must retain records of all business-related electronic communications to remain compliant with Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.  Rick Ketchum, FINRA Chairman and CEO, noted in a news release that social networking sites and blogs “raise new regulatory challenges” and that all financial firms and RRs should implement policies to ensure compliance by retaining records of communications made through social networking sites.

Michael Riedyk, Executive Director with PageFreezer, says he recognized the need for an archiving solution that would allow for the capture of every aspect of a social media site: blogs and the comments within them, Twitter feeds, FaceBook, LinkedIn recommendations, and so forth.  “It’s not just the large financial companies and institutions that need to consider their social networking activity from a compliance standpoint,” Riedyk commented.  “The individuals in the financial sector — investment advisors and the like — must comply with their firm’s retention policies.  PageFreezer is an affordable solution and it gets the job done perfectly.”

For the financial industry, a “perfect” archive needs to fill a tall order.  Records must be kept in such a way that they can be reproduced quickly if required, and they must be preserved in whatever medium they were originally produced.  Further, records must be kept for periods of up to seven years and they must bear proof of “data integrity and authenticity” (proof that the record has not been tampered with and is a faithful copy of the original).  PageFreezer meets these requirements, even for social media content, by stamping each page with a digital timestamp and signature, then storing it in a complete and searchable format on a fault-tolerant cloud.

The challenge for financial companies in the Information Age is balancing the use of unprecedented technologies with the proper management of the electronic content that runs through these new communication channels.  That is the challenge that PageFreezer effectively addresses with the capture and regulation-compliant storage of websites and social media content.

About PageFreezer
PageFreezer.com is a leading SaaS provider of social media & website archiving solutions by globally operating software company, PageFreezer Software, Inc., with offices in Seattle, Vancouver, Amsterdam and Brussels. PageFreezer provides website retention solutions for regulatory compliance and litigation protection to Government, Food, Pharmaceutical, Financial and Insurance companies.  PageFreezer operates as a stand-alone SaaS version of website and social media archiving technology. http://www.pagefreezer.com

The social networking explosion of the past few years has taken many organizations somewhat by surprise.  As Facebook and Twitter began to grow exponentially, most companies and agencies still looked askance at such platforms, dismissed them as juvenile, and (in some cases) even banned them from the workplace. Until now.  When it became apparent that social media was utilized by all ages and demographics, organizations began to see the benefits in connecting socially with their clients, customers, or citizens. 

Social media has become a platform for customer service, crowd-sourcing, advertising, promoting, and beyond. So it is no surprise that around 60% of companies are using social media in some way. Numerous articles and discussions have centered around best practices for utilizing these tools to gain the greatest market advantage, present the ideal company image, reach the largest audience, and so forth. But many organizations have failed to recognize the legal ramifications of this new communications medium, especially where records retention regulations are concerned.  Without a policy for preserving social media activity properly, companies could find themselves out of compliance or unprepared for records requests.

Instead of jumping onto social media because everybody else is doing it, without regard for retention strategies, organizations can network responsibly by recognizing these key facts:

Even a tweet should be considered a business record.
Most companies understand the importance of a retention policy that captures their web content and preserves it in a manner that is compliant with regulations and searchable in case of e-discovery or litigation proceedings. As more communication happens online and electronic records multiply, many organizations are wisely seeking vendors that provide admissible archives of online activity — but how many of these services provide backup of social media content?

Despite (perhaps even because of) its transient nature, social media content should be given the same consideration as traditional business communications.  Changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) demand that agencies provide for the capture, storage, and retrieval of digital records that might be required in a judicial or regulatory situation. Ensure compliance by choosing an archiving policy that allows for comprehensive preservation of your company’s social media content.

Some industries have specific requirements for social media archiving.
Every business should be aware that electronic records are held to the same retention standards as traditional records. Various court cases have shown that online content (which is expanding to include social media) may be requested in e-discovery, litigation, or audit situations. For some businesses, the directive to preserve social media records is particularly clear.  For instance, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) recently issued this guidance for financial broker/dealers:

“Every firm that intends to communicate, or permit its associated persons to communicate, through social media sites must first ensure that it can retain records of those communications as required by Rules 17a-3 ad 17a-4 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and NASD Rule 3110.”

Industries that have not yet developed specific rules for social media are in the process: food and drug companies are awaiting FDA guidance on the issue, while government agencies are working to develop records management policies for social media.

Preserving social media activity is good business.
There are other practical advantages to archiving your company’s social media history.  Having a comprehensive log of customer communications (such as on Twitter, forums, or other networks) can be useful, especially for pharmaceutical companies that might utilize such tools in conjunction with clinical studies or trials. Preserving social media records will also lower time and money expenditures in any legal proceeding and lessen the strain on your IT department.

What constitutes the ideal archiving policy?
When updating records retention strategies, companies should carefully consider the requirements for digital evidence in court, to ensure that their electronic files will be admissible in e-discovery or litigation cases. The Federal Rules of Evidence require a digital timestamp and digital signature to prove the authenticity and integrity of electronic files presented in court.

Companies should also ensure that their social media pages are preserved in their native format, with the ability to œre-play as if they were live. This should include video, links, Flash, and other features because simple screenshots are not accepted in regulatory situations. You must be able to prove the exact content of your social media pages from any given date.

Businesses can confidently tap into the power of social networking if they update their retention policies to include robust archiving of their social media activity.  For companies that underestimate the importance of preserving these records, the risks will only increase as corporate use of social platforms continues to expand.

Given these facts, it’s no wonder that drug companies have been eyeing social media as a potentially powerful asset, but the pharmaceutical industry has been slower than others to join the online conversation. This is primarily because of concerns over FDA regulations about disclosure and fair balance. In traditional marketing, FDA requirements are met by tacking disclaimers onto the end of print ads and television commercials.  Compliance is trickier when dealing with a 140-character limit, as on Twitter.

In 2009, as drug companies began to attempt more online marketing, they requested that the FDA re-consider its standards for web communications, and a public hearing was held as the FDA acknowledged that emerging technologies may require the agency to provide additional guidance in that arena.  At the time, industry experts expressed concern that the infamous rule development process could never keep pace with online innovation, and although the agency announced the promotion of prescription drug products using social media tools as part of their Guidance Agenda for 2010, pharma companies are still waiting for concrete rules as they attempt to balance compliance with online communications.

As these issues continue to develop, there are a few basic tenets that drug companies can bear in mind while building a relatable web presence.

Be aware of regulations and conventions.
It’s important to keep abreast of the current state of the discussion and the unspoken guidelines of the twitter verse in order to tweet effectively, writes Dan Bebear, pharma industry consultant, in his helpful article on the subject.  One resource for staying educated is Jonathan Richman’s Pharma Social Media Wiki, which aggregates all social media content created by the healthcare industry — it’s a lot of information, but that’s the whole point. Also useful is Ignite Health’s website #FDASM, comprising everything about the FDA, Internet, and Social Media. Here, drug companies can stay on top of the latest announcements, trends, and compliance issues for their industry.

Value engagement over advertisement.
Online marketing and sales still carry considerable compliance risks — so pharma companies can instead focus on creating a personable and engaging web presence, building trust and brand recognition in consumers. Tweeting about a variety of topics and including plenty of human interest, companies can reach out to the public without breaking regulations. Johnson and Johnson twitter feed sets the standard in this arena.

Implement a records retention policy.
Organizations are held increasingly liable for online content — down to every post and tweet. Keeping a non-refutable record of what was said, and when, is not a luxury but a necessity in today’s claim-skeptical environment. In case of FDA crackdown or any other legal issue, it’s essential that drug companies protect themselves with a solid web archiving policy. That’s the only way to ensure complete, legally-acceptable backup of the ever-changing corporate web presence.