FINRA Notification 11-39 – Social Media & Website Requirements

FINRA recently released Notice 11-39, further clarifying requirements to preserve social media and website content. This guidance builds on the previous Notice 10-6 in which FINRA initially provided guidance on social media.

Here’s some main points discussed in Notice 11-39:

• You must preserve any business related web content, be it on websites, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Orkut, LinkedIn or any other social network.
• In accordance with SEA Rule 17a-4, records must be preserved for three years — the first two years of content must be easily accessible.
• Record keeping requirements do not differ for static and interactive content — both must be preserved in accordance with SEA Rule 17a-4.
• Don’t use technology that automatically erases or deletes the content of an electronic communication as this would “preclude the ability of the firm to retain the communications in compliance with their obligations under SEA Rule 17a-4.”
• What you link to matters: “A firm should not include a link on its website
  if there are any red flags that indicate the linked site contains false or misleading content.”

FINRA’s repeated notices about social media and online content reinforce the sense that these forms of content are front of mind for FINRA. In fact, in Smarsh’s 2011 Electronic Communications Compliance Survey 56.3% of compliance officers reported having pages from their website audited (22% reported being audited for social media).

The message is this: FINRA is paying more and more attention to your interactive presence (social media, blogs, websites, wikis, etc.). Make sure you’re archiving what you’re doing on the web.

Iterasi Provides Best-In-Breed FINRA Compliance

If you need to comply with FINRA and SEC guidelines look no further than Iterasi’s suite of web archiving services. Capabilities include:

• Archive content across the web — from websites to social media to blogs and employee satellite sites and web presences we can archive what you need.
• Organize, search, curate, and audit in one console — One glance at our user console and you’ll begin to understand how capturing all your web content in one archive will save you time and positively impact the compliance side of your business.
• Professional litigation and compliance power — from custom retention schedules to exporting data to legal hold and more; we’ve got the tools you need.

Contact us to learn more about how Iterasi’s services can make your compliance operations more comprehensive and efficient.