Bloomberg News Caught Snooping on Bankers

Bloomberg LP operates both a multi-platform media organization, Bloomberg News, and a computer system, Bloomberg Terminal, that bankers and traders use to monitor market data. The problem: Bloomberg News reporters can see how and when any customer has been using a terminal, and now it turns out they have been using that access to snoop on Wall Street and break news, the New York Times reports. And it may have gone even further than just traders: a former Bloomberg staffer now says he also accessed the terminals of Ben Bernanke and Timothy Geithner, according to CNBC.

The issue was first discovered when a Bloomberg reporter asked Goldman Sachs if a partner had recently left the firm because he hadn't recently logged into his terminal, the New York Post revealed. JPMorgan claims Bloomberg may have used data from terminals to break the "London Whale" scandal, the Post reports. The Times says "several hundred" reporters have used the technique, gaining access to 315,000 subscribers worldwide. Bloomberg has called the news-gathering process "a mistake," and has cut off its journalists' access, reports the AP. But the damage may already be done: the terminal is Bloomberg's primary money-maker, with firms paying around $20,000 a year to use it, and Wall Street is not happy. (More Bloomberg LP stories.)