Defending Netflix’s use of Facebook to communicate with the public, lawyers at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati prodded the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to update its disclosure rules for the 21st century.
The commission pounced after Netflix CEO Reed Hastings posted an update on his Facebook page in July 2012 cheering the fact that the company’s users had watched more than 1 billion hours of programming the previous month. Late last year, the SEC informed Netflix it intended to pursue the company for violating the Regulation and Fair Disclosure rule, or Reg FD, which bars firms from selectively disclosing relevant information to market insiders.
