To clarify: ticker tape was not "printed ... and then sold", like a newspaper. Ticker tape was the output from a stock ticker, which was a device that recieved stock info from a telegraph-like transmission and printed the info onto paper tape. It allowed a business to get rapid info on stock trading and prices, more quickly than the messengers it replaced. Businesses with a ticker would buy blank rolls of tape for the ticker.

It was used once, and then discarded. Stock price information was very ephemeral info and very public, so anything from more than a few hours ago was waste material. it wasn't secret or special. Folks who collect it, look for treasures like tape output from major stock market events ... but nearly all of it was simply discarded.

Yes, actual ticker tape was used as confetti during parades in downtown Manhattan, up until the demise of the ticker technology in the 1960s. I can't speak to the use of it in other places.

AFAIK, the ticker tape thrown was mostly used tape, in long streams and sometimes smaller fragments. I've often wondered if some of the super-long streamers seen in older films were fresh unused rolls. tossed by some excited mogul or employee.

Af for who is in charge, the first ticker-tape parade was a spontaneous affair, but the city of NY quickly realized that it was a popular thing, and it became something "official" and used for major events.

These days there are no ticker tape machines in actual use, only a few working ones in museums and collectors, but the tradition remains in New York. Businesses along the route can make their own "confetti" using shredder output, or they can often get it from the building owner / landlord, local business associations in the Downtown area, or from the city itself.

My personal snarky favorite replacement for the long ticker tape pieces is "CVS receipts", which for those outside the CVS store area, means stupidly long paper receipts that many stores, but famously the CVS chain, print out for even the most trivial purchase.

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Perhaps mindful of previous parades, when partygoers were spotted tossing phone books and reams of paper, Mayor Bloomberg asked fans on Monday to exercise common sense. “If you have an office along Broadway, you are encouraged to throw confetti out your windows ... Just don’t throw anything heavy out the window — paper only.”

The city is contributing to the mess, providing shredded newspaper. (Alas, ticker tape is in short supply these days.) The Alliance for Downtown New York, a business group in Lower Manhattan, will give building managers along the route a total of 1,000 pounds of shredded paper.

“If you don’t distribute confetti, people will throw whatever they can find out the windows,” said Elizabeth H. Berger, the president of the group.

It takes a lot of clean-up but the tradition is strong. As best as I can tell no New York City government has ever been "anti-ticker-tape-parade". It's too popular.