{"id":812,"date":"2017-10-24T06:54:47","date_gmt":"2017-10-24T06:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/?p=812"},"modified":"2023-01-18T02:15:07","modified_gmt":"2023-01-18T02:15:07","slug":"spam-filter-sends-shock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/tech\/spam-filter-sends-shock\/","title":{"rendered":"How A Spam Filter Sent A Shock Through A Taser Maker"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On August 10, the Securities and Exchange Commission emailed Axon Enterprises, which makes police body cameras and Taser stun guns, with a few questions about the company\u2019s accounting practices. No response.<\/p>\n

In September, John Cash, the accounting branch chief at the SEC, sent a second email, asking for a response to the initial inquiry. Nada.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Later that month, on September 20, Cash wrote again to say that its\u00a0inquiries remained \u201coutstanding and unresolved,\u201d and that the agency would now proceed to make its correspondence with the company public.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you have not provided a substantive response, we are terminating our review and will take further steps as we deem appropriate,\u201d Cash wrote, without elaborating. Still: nothing.<\/p>\n

Then on Thursday, Axon said in a public SEC filing that it had finally received the emails: They were stuck in the spam filter \/ folder of the company\u2019s new chief financial officer. Axon said it only discovered the agency\u2019s queries on October 19th, and it now planned to respond within the next seven days. The company\u2019s stock price dropped by over 6% on the news.<\/p>\n

Axon\u2019s SEC filing attributed the problem to \u201cmiscommunication issues,\u201d but in a statement emailed to\u00a0Fast Company\u00a0<\/em>on Friday,\u00a0<\/em>it elaborated:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

\u2018Historically the SEC has sent hard copy letters. In this instance they sent the request via email to one individual that had never corresponded with the sender before and therefore the sender\u2019s message was caught in a filter and never reached the intended recipient. Once we were made aware of the original letter and confirmed receipt we responded to the SEC and we will be providing them with responses to their questions.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Such\u00a0requests for information from regulators aren\u2019t completely uncommon, but losing them to a spam quarantine\u2014one made not by Axon but by an unnamed third-party vendor\u2014is certainly an ironic accident for a company\u00a0determined to be a police tech powerhouse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0SEC requests\u00a0relate to some of the company\u2019s accounting methods. As\u00a0CNN writes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the first letter, SEC Accounting Branch Chief John Cash asked Axon CFO Jawad Ahsan about how the company accounts for its order backlog, which the SEC noted \u201cincreased substantially\u201d in 2016. Cash also had questions about revenue recognition for the company\u2019s new Taser 60 program that allowed customers to pay for the weapons in monthly installments. There was also a request for Axon to disclose more information about how much the free trial program for its body cameras \u2014which it\u00a0launched early this year<\/a>\u2014 could impact profit margins.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On Monday, Goldberg Law PC, a Los Angeles-based law firm specializing in shareholder rights, announced that as a result of the SEC review, it was launching an investigation into \u201cwhether Axon and certain of its officers and\/or directors violated federal securities laws.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In its statement last week, the company wrote, \u201cWe remain confident in our accounting statements, and will not comment further on this matter until we have these routine Comment Letter questions fully resolved.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
\n

 <\/p>\n

Axon, which until April was known as Taser Enterprise, has been embroiled in controversy over its electrical weapons for over a decade. Last month,\u00a0Reuters\u00a0<\/em>published\u00a0the largest study to date<\/a> of legal cases involving the company\u2019s signature weapons.<\/p>\n

Body cameras and software have lately become a much larger business focus amid a wave of public demand for more police oversight and a growing demand by cops for data storage and evidence management. Axon, which reported a profit of $17 million last year, still makes most of its money from weapons, but cameras and software are growing much faster, with $66 million in sales last year.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the same day it posted its SEC filing, Axon also announced Citizen, a digital tool for letting civilians upload video and photos to its subscription-based evidence.com police data platform. Todd Basche, a former Apple exec who\u2019s now Axon\u2019s vice president for product, said the tool would primarily be used for helping the police crowd source evidence to solve specific crimes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on Fast Company<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

About Fastmetrics, Inc. Building & Business ISP<\/h4>\n

Since 2002, Fastmetrics is the Bay Area’s only dedicated business ISP<\/a>. We provide telecommunication services in California and the San Francisco Bay Area. Reliable service – backed by better live and local support. From install to 24-7 proactive monitoring, get treated like a VIP customer. Not a number by a faceless call center. We specialize in managed business internet and phones<\/a>, dedicated high speed business fiber internet<\/a>, business WiFi<\/a>, SIP voice<\/a> solutions \/ UCaaS and managed network services. We are a Microsoft and Cisco Meraki<\/a> Partner. Our team are Certified Cisco Specialists, Ubiquiti Enterprise Wireless Accredited and Polycom Authorized Solution Advisors. We take care of your business network, so you can focus on growth.<\/p>\n

\"Microsoft\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \"Cisco \u00a0\"Ubiquiti<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On August 10, the Securities and Exchange Commission emailed Axon Enterprises, which makes police body cameras and Taser stun guns, with a few questions about the company\u2019s accounting practices. No response. In September, John Cash, the accounting branch chief at the SEC, sent a second email, asking for a response to the initial inquiry. Nada. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1035,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fastmetrics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}