Privacy Breach on Bloomberg's Data Terminals

By AMY CHOZICK and BEN PROTESS
May 10, 2013

A shudder went through Wall Street on Friday after the revelation 
that Bloomberg News reporters had extracted subscribers' private 
information through the company's ubiquitous data terminals to break 
news.

The company confirmed that reporters at Bloomberg News, the 
journalism arm of Bloomberg L.P., had for years used the company's 
terminals to monitor when subscribers had logged onto the service and 
to find out what types of functions, like the news wire, corporate 
bond trades or an equities index, they had looked at. Bloomberg 
terminals, which cost an average of more than $20,000 a year, are 
found in nearly every banking and trading company.

Bloomberg said the functions that allowed journalists to monitor 
subscribers were a mistake and were promptly disabled after Goldman 
Sachs complained that a Bloomberg reporter had, while inquiring about 
a partner's employment status, pointed out that the partner had not 
logged onto his Bloomberg terminal lately.

The incident led to broader concerns about the line at Bloomberg 
between its lucrative terminal business and the hypercompetitive 
newsroom, threatening to undermine the credibility of both. In a 
secretive world that thrives on opacity, traders and financial firms 
jealously guard every speck of information about their activity to 
avoid tipping their hand on their trades and investments.

...


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/business/media/privacy-breach-on-bloombergs-data-terminals.html


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