Goldman Sachs Accuses Bloomberg Reporters Of Spying
Image via Flickr/ jm3
Call it insider reporting: The NY Post reported that Goldman Sachs recently confronted Bloomberg LP claiming reporters for the financial news service were using its legendary terminals to monitor Goldman’s employees. Specifically, Bloomberg reporters were checking on the comings and goings of Goldman employees as they logged into Bloomberg’s terminals and watching how many times bankers used particular functions.
“In one instance, a Bloomberg reporter asked a Goldman executive if a partner at the bank had recently left the firm — noting casually that he hadn’t logged into his Bloomberg terminal in some time,” a source told the New York Post. “You can basically see how many times someone has looked up news stories or if they used their messaging functions,” one Goldman insider told the Post. “It made us think, ‘Well, what else does [Bloomberg] have access to?’”
After executives from Goldman and Bloomberg met regarding the volatile subject Bloomberg promised to block its reporters from the function allowing them to spy.
“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,” Bloomberg spokesman Ty Trippet said. But some Goldman traders are still concerned about the privacy of their terminal activity.
Bloomberg terminals are a staple among Wall Street traders and help firms make trading decisions with their streams of seemingly-endless data. Wall Street firms pay about $20,000 a year to rent each terminal, providing Bloomberg LP more than $6 billion in annual revenue.
According to the Post, no Bloomberg reporters were fired over the snooping issue.
