Bloomberg Reporters Caught Spying On Terminal Users 55
theodp writes "Big Bloomberg is watching you. CNN reports that was the unsettling realization Goldman Sachs execs came to a few weeks ago when a Bloomberg reporter inadvertently revealed that reporters from the news and financial data provider had surveillance capabilities over users of Bloomberg terminals. 'Limited customer relationship data has long been available to our journalists,' acknowledged a Bloomberg spokesman. 'In light of [Goldman's] concern as well as a general heightened sensitivity to data access, we decided to disable journalist access to this customer relationship information for all clients.' Business Insider is now reporting on allegations that Bloomberg reporters used terminals to spy on JPMorgan during the 'London Whale' disaster; Bloomberg bragged about its leadership on this story."
Re:This is huge and shocking (Score:4, Interesting)
This wasn't spying between two different sides of one company. This was someone in the Bloomberg corporation who was able to spy on people in Goldman Sachs corporation - two different companies. It isn't clear that you could firewall this as it seems to be covert functionality built into the software.
Keep in mind that this is the company started by the current mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg. That is the same Mayor Bloomberg that tried to limit the size of sodas in New York City to 16 oz. [townhall.com], and started the scandal ridden "Mayors against Guns [saf.org]."
Although John Stewart said this about the soda ban, I'm thinking it might have wider application.
"combines the draconian government overreach people love with the probable lack of results they expect." -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
Re:Welcome to what web consumers have faced for ye (Score:3, Interesting)
I was once called by a Bloomberg reporter who wanted a comment on the movement of a particularly thinly traded security that I owned. I asked her how she knew to call me, and she replied that I ran news and analytics on that specific ticker regularly on my Bloomberg terminal.
It makes me wonder how often I was front-run by Bloomberg reporters or their cronies over the years.
Gun comment pretending to be on topic (Score:3, Interesting)
Man you gun nuts stretch things to insane limits.
So let me recap,
John Stewart condemned Mayor Bloombergs big soda ban.
Mayor Bloomberg ALSO doesn't like guns (which is not surprising in a gun crime riddled city).
You apply John's comment to Bloomberg's anti-gun stance (to which it doesn't apply, except that you want it to).
You then point out that Bloomberg founded Bloomberg.com, the trading and financial data company.
So you did a very tiresome long winding way into promoting guns.
Great, but how many people died of gun crime while you were telling that story? 2? 5?