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To: Judith Williams who wrote (23529)	4/25/2000 9:02:00 PM
From: Mike Buckley	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

APRIL 28 DEADLINE That's the deadline for public comment submitted to the SEC about "a rule proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding the fair disclosure of information by publicly traded companies to the public. The rule (Proposed Regulation FD) would require, among other things, that companies no longer engage in the practice of discreetly disclosing important information to Wall Street analysts without also giving that information to the public at large." If you have an opinion about having equal access to information, e-mail the government agency at rule-comments@sec.gov. In the subject area of your e-mail, the heading should be Proposed Regulation FD: File No. S7-31-99. If you want information about the proposed rule, check out fool.com If you wonder why I believe The Motley Fool has done more for individual investors than all the financial services companies combined, you'll appreciate that half of the public comments filed with the SEC have come from the Fool community and that the full-service brokerage firms are lobbying hard against this rule that promotes equal access to information. A copy of the e-mail I sent to the SEC is shown below. Remember that the deadline for public comment is April 28. --Mike Buckley ============================ Subj: Proposed Regulation FD: File No. S7-31-99 Date: 4/25/00 8:49:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: M BUCKLEY To: rule-comments@sec.gov I have read the ideas expressed by the Securities Industry Association lobbying on behalf of its full-service broker members. I completely disagree with their contention that analysts provide a better service for the owners of America's public companies by operating in an environment with access to information denied to the very people who own or are considering owning those companies. Their contentions betray all common sense. If it betrays common sense, what is the motivation? SIA desires unequal access to information by its members' analysts because they resell the information to the American public. There's nothing wrong with reselling the information. But making that information more valuable by giving them unequal access to it, denying equal access to individual investors, is wrong. If there is any doubt in your mind that SIA's motivation is less than honorable, be reminded of Merrill Lynch's contention expressed over a year ago by its CEO that online trading was the worst thing for individual investors. A year later and having reversed its thinking, Merrill Lynch is now offering online trading to its customers. The contentions of the community of full-service brokers expressed in SIA's filings show more concern about the market share they are losing to the discount brokers than concern for individual investors. I applaud Proposed Regulation FD. --Mike Buckley

To: Judith Williams who wrote (23529)	4/25/2000 9:09:00 PM
From: Eric L	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Judith, << FM probably wasted on AF tho >> I suspect. I think Tek will like the intro to AF's article: Yahoo! Message Board Posting: "Though I walk in the valley of the death, I use QCOM chips to call God and get the devil off my back." Also, I hope Tek caught Maurice Winn's recent post over on the Nokia thread: Nokia and the others wanted QUALCOMM to pool their IPR with others and share payments out equally [or some such arrangement] for the VW40 efforts. Q! told them to take a running jump; Q! would charge the standard rate, which people guess at as being something like 4 or 5.6%, which is an absurdly low rate compared with the huge GSM royalties of around 15% - GSM is just a boring TDMA radio interface whereas CDMA is so sophisticated it broke the known laws of physics at the time so deserves a MUCH higher royalty. Q! being so magnanimous and wanting to spread the word, charged a minuscule royalty. Made my day (along with the abundant green ink), so thought I'd share. - Eric -