Ferreting out activist shareholders

Activist shareholders have been more active than every this past year, and the big question on my mind is: How will this change the way companies make decisions? The Financial Times seems to be of two minds about it:

1. It's popular "Lex Column" (of 12/9/05) seems to assume that activist shareholders will have increasing sway over corporate policies, and balances the "pro" of forcing management to defend its ideas with the "con" of potentially pitting shareholders with competing objectives against each other.
2. The following day's front page, however, has an article ("Boards check shareholder lists for trouble") describing a very different corporate response: to sleuth out who the activist shareholders are, presumably to cut them off at the pass. The article is not very specific about how corporations intend to use information about internal agitators, but here's the general idea: "Companies want to know who owns their stock, what their investors' intentions are and what their voting history is.... They want to know if there are activists there, and they want to get a better idea of the modus operandi of any activists, as well as what other shareholders might tie into their plans."

What will they do with this information? Will something akin to the "poison pill" be incorporated into company bylaws to prevent activist-driven change? Will they work more collaboratively with activists in advance of a stand-off? Will managers simply be better informed and have their rebuttals ready when the confrontation occurs? This is a very new area, and I'm not quite sure what to expect - probably a bit of each scenario.

The important thing is to keep an eye on this development, and it would be nice if the SEC was ready to move quickly on implementing any new rules, as the need for them becomes more clear - either to stop managers from banishing dissent or to prevent some shareholders from undermining the interests of others.