Corporate Online

[Luke Closs]

Tonight I started to incorporate a new BC Business, using the BC
Registry Services' Corporate Online website.  I had an eye on the
clock, because I knew I had to get it done before the website closed
at 10pm. o_O

https://skitch.com/vanjuggler/8etg4/corporate-online

So it's clear that this site is probably coming on 8 or 10 years old -
but that's okay - I just want to get my incorporating on.  I go on
through some steps until there is one where I'd like more information.
I click the ? help button and some windows pop-up except they are all
empty.  I change to a different web browser, and then go through that
process again, and i can eventually jiggle it to see the help.

(Aside: maybe someone can pass on a bug report to the organization
that operates that service.  In my experience, breakage of important
help text on a major browser would be priority 1 bug for that service
- but it's been this way for months.
https://skitch.com/vanjuggler/8ete4/corporate-online-help)

But my point here isn't to pick on the current site. It's just old -
built to be a solid workhorse. (A workhorse that needs a good rest at
night)  And it's probably been around for many years - hopefully a
good investment. Still, it's at least a generation behind modern web
standards for usability and access.

So we could talk about how the website could be better or prettier or
re-invent it, or make it mobile or all of these things.

But while all of those are important, I think the organization that
provides corporates online should not do any of them.  Instead, I
would have that team focus on adding an API - start simple, improve it
iteratively.

Such an API would be of immense value to BC.  I can't stop from
imagining delightful outcomes:

1) Immediately, several companies and individuals start building
interesting products to: help corporations maintain their records
easily, make it easier to incorporate new businesses, send reminders

2) Immediately, journalists would re-build their crufty old
hand-maintained databases with a reliable and clean data source.  New
stories emerge from clean views on the data.

3) Immediately, open data groups create mashups and visualizations,
new tools to explore.  Someone would quickly write a connector to Open
Corporates, where BC would get lots of respect for their API and would
gain access to the ecosystem of research and tools being built on
their platform.

3) Soon, researchers start to visualize and understand historical
trends, and economic policy can be improved with better understanding
of the data.

4) By Jan 1st 2013, the best new corporate online site created in #1
is given a service contract to be the official provider, and the
current site run by the government becomes API only.

5) BC becomes the first government to allow incorporation by a single
HTTP POST.  Soon, other provinces seek advice of the distinguished BC
team.  A modified version of their API is adopted as a Canada wide
standard years later.

6) With the government no longer saddled with the burden of building
and maintaining a new corporates website, it can focus all efforts on
the API into the government's data store.  This is a much smaller
task, and provides a clean interface to re-architect against, if
needed.

7) A decade later, the API is still humming along, improving
iteratively as needs, budget and standards change.  The applications
on top change and improve our quality of life.

And the best part is that it would be extremely cost effective -
perhaps by an order of magnitude compared to redesigning a new version
of the same thing.

I think it's a leap-frog move - or maybe judo.

What do _you_ think?

--
Best, luk.ec

[James McKinney]

1) Immediately, several companies and individuals start building
interesting products to: help corporations maintain their records
easily, make it easier to incorporate new businesses, send reminders

Many companies do this now, without an API. They submit documents for you, send email reminders, etc. e.g. http://www.corporationcentre.ca/ I guess having an API-based service would drive down the cost of such services. Just saying - there's already a big market to help incorporate businesses!

2) Immediately, journalists would re-build their crufty old
hand-maintained databases with a reliable and clean data source.  New
stories emerge from clean views on the data.

Does this refer to the corporate registry? I consider that's a separate issue from the incorporation process. The Maritimes and Quebec publish online searchable databases. Few jurisdictions worldwide offer bulk downloads, but it's a direction in which things are moving.

3) Immediately, open data groups create mashups and visualizations,
new tools to explore.  Someone would quickly write a connector to Open
Corporates, where BC would get lots of respect for their API and would
gain access to the ecosystem of research and tools being built on
their platform.

3) Soon, researchers start to visualize and understand historical
trends, and economic policy can be improved with better understanding
of the data.

What data are you talking about? The corporate registry? If so, all this can be achieved by dumping the registry to a structured format, whether that's XML, JSON, CSV, whatever - and posting it on DataBC. And much faster than getting the government to design an API!

Relatedly, I requested the corporate registry from DataBC, as you currently need to pay something like $7 PER SEARCH of the corporate registry.

5) BC becomes the first government to allow incorporation by a single
HTTP POST.  Soon, other provinces seek advice of the distinguished BC
team.  A modified version of their API is adopted as a Canada wide
standard years later.

I needed a commissioner of oaths to witness my signature on some of the documents I filed for Open North (a federal non-profit), so we'll have to change some laws before it's as easy as an HTTP POST to submit documents (they want original documents).

Anyway, I'd love for the government to do this sort of innovation. However, I think it'll be a challenge to get BC to just drop the fees on searches of its corporate registry.

--

James McKinney
Open North
+1.514.247.0223

http://opennorth.ca/

http://citizenbudget.com/ interactive budget consultations for municipalities

ja...@opennorth.ca

Twitter: @opennorth

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[Luke Closs]

On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 9:25 PM, James McKinney <ja...@opennorth.ca> wrote:
>
> 1) Immediately, several companies and individuals start building
> interesting products to: help corporations maintain their records
> easily, make it easier to incorporate new businesses, send reminders
>
>
> Many companies do this now, without an API. They submit documents for you,
> send email reminders, etc. e.g. http://www.corporationcentre.ca/ I guess
> having an API-based service would drive down the cost of such services. Just
> saying - there's already a big market to help incorporate businesses!

Exactly - it's these companies would benefit greatly too.

> 2) Immediately, journalists would re-build their crufty old
> hand-maintained databases with a reliable and clean data source.  New
> stories emerge from clean views on the data.
>
>
> Does this refer to the corporate registry? I consider that's a separate
> issue from the incorporation process. The Maritimes and Quebec publish
> online searchable databases. Few jurisdictions worldwide offer bulk
> downloads, but it's a direction in which things are moving.
>
> 3) Immediately, open data groups create mashups and visualizations,
> new tools to explore.  Someone would quickly write a connector to Open
> Corporates, where BC would get lots of respect for their API and would
> gain access to the ecosystem of research and tools being built on
> their platform.
>
> 3) Soon, researchers start to visualize and understand historical
> trends, and economic policy can be improved with better understanding
> of the data.
>
>
> What data are you talking about? The corporate registry? If so, all this can
> be achieved by dumping the registry to a structured format, whether that's
> XML, JSON, CSV, whatever - and posting it on DataBC. And much faster than
> getting the government to design an API!

Dumping as those formats is a great start, and would enable lots of
the type of development we're talking about.

But the API I'm envisioning at the very least is the functionality
necessary to run the Corporations Online website - namely -
incorporating new organizations and updating information for existing
organizations.

> Relatedly, I requested the corporate registry from DataBC, as you currently
> need to pay something like $7 PER SEARCH of the corporate registry.

Exactly - this is ridiculous for obvious reasons.

> 5) BC becomes the first government to allow incorporation by a single
> HTTP POST.  Soon, other provinces seek advice of the distinguished BC
> team.  A modified version of their API is adopted as a Canada wide
> standard years later.
>
>
> I needed a commissioner of oaths to witness my signature on some of the
> documents I filed for Open North (a federal non-profit), so we'll have to
> change some laws before it's as easy as an HTTP POST to submit documents
> (they want original documents).
>
> Anyway, I'd love for the government to do this sort of innovation. However,
> I think it'll be a challenge to get BC to just drop the fees on searches of
> its corporate registry.

That was not a post about challenges. :)

Thanks for your thoughts, James.

[Herb Lainchbury]

+10 Luke

This is a great idea.  I too recently had to use that system.  I wonder what it costs to maintain that system and who would have to approve such an idea? 

Herb

[James McKinney]

I wonder what it costs to maintain that system and who would have to approve such an idea?

I'm no expert on this, but I assume at least some parts would have to go through the legislature, as this change in process will likely require changes to at least some of: Financial Administration Act, Business Corporations Act, Partnership Act, Society Act, Cooperative Association Act. I don't think publishing the registry as bulk download would require changing any laws. More a question of convincing them to do it! (And not an easy task as searches are a revenue stream. See the whole OC Transpo debacle over bus tracking data.)

[Andrew Dyck]

Beautiful Luke! My ideal is that gov moves towards more APIs for services. They can still build whatever web portals they like on top of their own APIs, but allow others to use them as well. 

In SK, our corporate registry is maintained by ISC, which is a Crown Corporation. There has been some discussion about open data and new models, but ultimately they are a corporation and must be financially viable. In a scenario like suggested here, how does the gov stay financially viable where they aren't collecting fees for name search (in SK it's $20 - $60 per search!)? I'm thinking about a freemium model where the API requires a key. 50 searches per month for free and $$$ subscription fee for developers to use the API in an app where they make more requests.

A

[Herb Lainchbury]

I think we have to abolish this "search for money" model.

I argue that they are not really selling the search or the data.  They are selling the authority, which they can continue to sell.  Many open source software companies use this model (Red Hat for example).  It works because some percent of people will gladly pay because they need the assurance of the company behind the software.  They don't pay for the software, they pay for the assurance.

Some of you will have heard me speak about the land titles case before.  There are a number of innovative business models for this, but essentially, if someone is going to actually transfer land title, they need an "official" assertions from land titles to perform the transfer.  That makes sense.  We need the assurance from the government that there is an "official" truth about ownership.  For someone to build an interesting and valuable app they don't need that assurance.  They just need the data.

The revenues lost from search results can be made up in other ways and in the end the economic value can be much more than the simple pay per record model.  What I want to know is not where that "lost revenue" will come from, but, why are they leaving money on the table?  There are people that are not creating economic value right now because the cost of using public data is too high.  Why do I think that?  Try raising the price of a search to $1,000 or $10,000.  Does demand drop off at $20?  I doubt it.  There is a long tail of economic value being ignored right now.

Why don't we do cost recovery on bicycle paths or side walks or parks?

H

--
Herb Lainchbury
Dynamic Solutions Inc.
www.dynamic-solutions.com
http://twitter.com/herblainchbury

[Gerry Matte]

Remember that many people believe that their tax dollars make them owners of the public assets.

They are willing to pay a nominal fee when they  ask for a service but they do consider that they have already paid the bigger ownership and maintenance costs.

There would be a huge tax revolt if governments started charging for the use of publically funded assets like parks, side walks, bike paths, etc

[Tom Weir]

In making the argument(s) for change, I think its also very important to point out/acknowledge that it made sense to charge for search in the past when somebody had to physically search through filing cabinets for records, and then make copies of the appropriate records.

Governments need to keep records; it's what they do, and they need to do it regardless whether or not somebody wants to search for it. Search shouldn't cost money unless the nature of that search places a significant additional burden on the system. I.e. manual search of records not in a database, or fuzzy/heuristic search for related materials. The argument could be made that the volume of searches is something that could/should be charged for. I.e. 5 additional searches per month won't, in, and of, themselves, burden the system, but an extra 5M searches would. However that is a problem that vendors such as google, etc have already solved - track the high volume users & make them pay.

On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 2:24 PM, Herb Lainchbury <he...@dynamic-solutions.com> wrote:

I think we have to abolish this "search for money" model.

I argue that they are not really selling the search or the data.  They are selling the authority, which they can continue to sell.  Many open source software companies use this model (Red Hat for example).  It works because some percent of people will gladly pay because they need the assurance of the company behind the software.  They don't pay for the software, they pay for the assurance.

Some of you will have heard me speak about the land titles case before.  There are a number of innovative business models for this, but essentially, if someone is going to actually transfer land title, they need an "official" assertions from land titles to perform the transfer.  That makes sense.  We need the assurance from the government that there is an "official" truth about ownership.  For someone to build an interesting and valuable app they don't need that assurance.  They just need the data.

The revenues lost from search results can be made up in other ways and in the end the economic value can be much more than the simple pay per record model.  What I want to know is not where that "lost revenue" will come from, but, why are they leaving money on the table?  There are people that are not creating economic value right now because the cost of using public data is too high.  Why do I think that?  Try raising the price of a search to $1,000 or $10,000.  Does demand drop off at $20?  I doubt it.  There is a long tail of economic value being ignored right now.

Why don't we do cost recovery on bicycle paths or side walks or parks?

H

--
Herb Lainchbury
Dynamic Solutions Inc.
www.dynamic-solutions.com
http://twitter.com/herblainchbury

--

--
Geekworks Solutions
tw...@geekwerks.ca

[Michael Mulley]

I don't know much about the motivations behind such policies (though I suspect that Tom's right that history plays a big part), but it seems like another big element is one related to assurance: control.

I think many of us are used to hearing concerns about "the integrity of the data" when arguing for open data, and these concerns are stronger with more valuable datasets. Control also means allowing the data to be searched in only a few ways, which is sometimes legitimate. For example, several property-assessment registries charge for searches. If someone were able to assemble their own copy of the database -- which they probably would if it weren't for the fee -- they'd be able to easily search for the home addresses of any given person, which is arguably a privacy violation.

I imagine there are similar situations with a lot of government registries. Charging isn't necessarily the best way to maintain privacy (or, depending on the situation & your point of view, secrecy), but I can see how it's an attractive and fairly effective one.

(I'm also fairly clueless about this particular area, so this may be something that's already known, discussed, and solved.)

[James McKinney]

When you pay RedHat or a similar vendor, you get guarantees, a service level agreement, a block of hours for troubleshooting, etc. For the consumer, it's not just "I feel much better now that I paid RedHat" - they are actually getting something on top of the free and open-source operating system. Those extras are what people are paying for.

What is BC giving me when I perform a paid search that other, free corporate registries in other jurisdictions don't? I can't think of anything. If BC keeps its corporate registry in a digital database (if not, they have bigger problems), then they can easily offer a free search. Most registries just use a prefix search, but they can do whatever's easiest for them (prefix is very easy, though). If BC wants to provide some sort of "Search PLUS" paid product that performs phonetic or fuzzy matching with spellcheck, etc. - why not.

Transferring land titles is very different from searching corporate registries. Searching land title registries would be a more sensible comparison. Transferring land titles is more like transferring corporations, which is not what we're talking about.

Anyway, you kind of lost me. Are you saying it makes sense for BC to charge for search?

[Herb Lainchbury]

No, I am not saying that search should be free at all.  Sorry if my note was confusing.

I think these registries should just be online in downloadable form.  Like the campaign contributions, business licenses, etc.. are in some jurisdictions.  

If they want to provide a search capability, fine.  Additional services, great.  Charge for land title transfers, absolutely.  

But, the registry data should be open.

H

[David Eaves]

With this particular data set I'd go beyond the notion that it is a public asset, there is actually a public benefit to having it as openly and freely available. Having a corporation is a privilege, essentially a community is endowing the owners with a set of privileges (limited liability) that are significant. Knowing who has acquired this privilege is actually important democratic data - so any "cost" of making the data available should not be seen seen as a loss but rather an investment in market transparency, privilege accountability and democratic rights.

The economist put it best in a recent leader - http://www.economist.com/node/21543132

I'm also happy to have your incorporation costs include a $5 tax to pay for the infrastructure. Let the cost be born by those who earn the privilege and those who benefit from them.

Dave   

[Wade Badenhorst]

+1 David - well said.

I agree with the idea of pushing the infrastructure cost back on the entity that enjoys the benefits of incorporation.

Wade

[Kevin McArthur]

The entity being the general public whom enjoy access to the products or services produced? I disagree with the idea that a corporation is some sort of privilege bestowed on its owners. Its actually a whole whack of liabilities that amount to thousands of dollars per year. It simply the legal structure that allows the public to co-operate in furtherance of the economy.

That said, $5 wont make or break anyone, but I truly think we need to get over this idea that business can just absorb more taxes. If these infrastructure costs exist, stick em on the Carbon tax I say.

--

Kevin

[David Eaves]

Wow to boil down what I said into a suggestion that we can just add more taxes to corporations is such a profound misreading of what I wrote I'm not even sure how to respond. And to claim the limited liability is not an enormous privilige is staggering. 

--

www.eaves.ca

@daeaves

Sent from my iPhone

[Kevin McArthur]

" I'm also happy to have your incorporation costs include a $5 tax to pay for the infrastructure. Let the cost be born by those who earn the privilege and those who benefit from them."

I'm not sure how else to read that.

What Herb, by my read, was referring to was: why are we doing user fees, not who better to pay for them. The idea that a fee, no matter how small, adds some degree of friction to the system and results in lesser economic activity. Be eliminating the fees, and moving the costs into general revenue, we remove the friction against these activities in a way that will likely produce more of those activities in the long run.

It goes back to the mapplace.ca example. Many would argue who better than big mining companies to pay for access to mapplace, you could charge massive user fees for that data, as its critical to the sector to be able to stake claims, and prospect with the government data.  The value it adds to the mining business owner is probably 10s to 100s of thousands. So why not make them pay for it?

Here's why. Because its free, we now have a host of junior mining companies doing digital prospecting work, 2-3 man shops who could never afford to pay those user fees are now creating jobs and paying taxes. When the big mining company buys their claims, theres a tax. When the mine sets up, theres another huge tax inflow. What started at mapplace, ended up with lots of small businesses and a mine. If user-fees existed, the small firms wouldnt exist, and resultingly the mine probably would not exist. BC might get some fees from a handful of megacorps and pay for the program, but in the long run, they lose more money than they make.

What Herb, I read, is getting at is that land titles are the same deal, a friction-by-user-fee environment is probably actually costing the province money through decreased economic activity, all for the sake of doing some direct cost recovery.

As to the 'privilege' of the corporation, we'll have to agree to disagree. I certainly don't feel anyone has done me any favours in that regard, and the added red-tape, taxation and legal overhead is staggering.

--

Kevin

[Herb Lainchbury]

Hmm...  Last time I checked, forming a corporation was a voluntary act.  People do it simply because the benefits of a corporation outweigh the costs.

The Economist article David points to makes some great points about why this data should be public.

People form corporations because they want to participate in an upside without assuming the entire risk of the associated potential downside.  The corporate privilege is the state approved transferral of risk from the risk taker to the public.  I don't think it's too much to ask to know who the people are involved.  Not sure how to do that but even knowing what corporations exist would be a good start.  I can't imagine why that information should be kept secret and I can think of lots of reasons why it shouldn't.

Down with friction!  :)

H

[Herb Lainchbury]

I think I confused things by throwing the land titles registry in there.... probably because I have some really cool app ideas for that data for when it gets released as open data.  :)

It would be interesting to enumerate the BIG registries that we would be interested in.  Maybe that deserves another thread.

H

[Kevin McArthur]

People form corporations because they want to participate in an upside without assuming the entire risk of the associated potential downside.  The corporate privilege is the state approved transferral of risk from the risk taker to the public.  I don't think it's too much to ask to know who the people are involved.  Not sure how to do that but even knowing what corporations exist would be a good start.  I can't imagine why that information should be kept secret and I can think of lots of reasons why it shouldn't.

I agree we need the transparency part, but not with the reason for incorporation, risks, etc.

While this is a little off thread:

A corporation is simply a group of people. If I want to do something with 50 other folks, who should take the liability for the actions of all 50? Should it be the guy who came up with the idea and organised the company? Should everyone be collectively liable? Reality is a corporation just means co-operation, and the legal liabilities (what is here referred to as 'privilege') is just a byproduct of the fact that theres no reasonable place for liability to be assigned to a group. One man cannot build a bridge, so when it collapses, why would one man be liable? Where the liabilities are things like taxes and wages, eg, the things the owners are directly responsible for managing, there is no disclaimer of liability -- in fact, its fully apportioned and the directors are individually liable. So privilege? ... and why tax the group another $5 or $5000 (the value doesnt matter) up front for undertaking something in the economic interest? If anything the privilege is the public's for having someone collect investment and create jobs and produce products or services that benefit them. In short, we've got far better places that we can levy taxes than at the time of incorporation.

--

K

[Jury Konga]

Sorry – late in this thread and it did go in several directions but I thought I’d just add a reference to the global Open Corporates initiative http://opencorporates.com/   I note it has over 608,000 Canadian corporations in their database.  I searched for your company Herb but you obviously hide your corporate info well.  lol

 

Cheers    Jury

 

From: opend...@googlegroups.com [mailto:opend...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Herb Lainchbury
Sent: March-15-12 5:14 PM
To: opend...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [OpenDataBC] Corporate Online

 

I think I confused things by throwing the land titles registry in there.... probably because I have some really cool app ideas for that data for when it gets released as open data.  :)

[James McKinney]

I assume Herb's company is BC incorporated, and OpenCorporates only has federal and PEI incorporations. Only the Maritimes and Quebec have free, searchable corporate registries.

[Herb Lainchbury]

What!?  DSI has been left out?!  <sigh>

[Lisa Tansey]

You make me glad I stayed on this mailing list!  Herb, Kevin, and David are among the most eloquent and articulate exponents of their respective, highly refined, and well-thought-out points of view, ok that I've ever encountered outside of a scholarly journal.  Thanks, guys!

[Wade Badenhorst]

Great discussion!

@Kevin - 

"If anything the privilege is the public's for having someone collect investment and create jobs and produce products or services that benefit them. In short, we've got far better places that we can levy taxes than at the time of incorporation."

I think one would have had a better chance of successfully arguing that point of view ~100 years ago.  Back then corporate charters were closely monitored to ensure the corporation worked for the public interest instead of the shareholders (hence Standard Oil being a trust and not a corporation).   Extensive lobbying has eroded this focus on public interest. 

I think David was suggesting an increase in the registration fee not an additional tax.  Taxes and fees are fundamentally different things.

Wade