A rash of incidents in recent financial quarters has seen public companies (including Disney, Microsoft and others) prematurely disclosing their earnings information — from news posting early to their website, to lags between the time of distribution and posting, to files containing material information made available online ahead of time. With the rising importance of investor relations websites as recognized communications channels, it’s only getting worse. In addition to individual snoopers, news agencies and market intelligence firms now have automated crawlers that scour corporate IR sites during earnings season, looking for news ahead of an official announcement or posting. (more…)