A former Bloomberg employee told CNBC that he accessed information on the terminals of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. The employee didn't say specifically what he was looking at, but that it concerned usage of specific functions.
News of the scandal broke on Friday when the New York Post revealed that Goldman Sachs had complained that employees usage of their terminals were spied on by Bloomberg reporters. Further reports indicated that the spying was more widespread, affecting other companies such as JPMorgan.
With over 300,000 customers, Bloomberg terminals are considered a staple of information in the financial world.
On Saturday, the Federal Reserve announced that it would look into the situation. CNBC also reported that the Treasury would be investigating.
Bloomberg CEO Daniel Doctoroff admitted that it was a "mistake" to give journalists access to client data. The company announced Friday that, in wake of the controversy, journalists would no longer have access to client log-in activity on the terminals.
Things got worse for Bloomberg later on Saturday, when BuzzFeed published a report claiming that higher-ups at the financial information giant knew that journalists were accessing subscriber log-in data as early as 2011. A Bloomberg TV anchor made comments on-air suggesting that journalists at the company were using the information for potential stories.
In another CNBC report, Wall Street sources admitted that Bloomberg reporters had openly asked about employees' terminal usage behaviors.
"They were quite open about it," one JPMorgan Chase source told CNBC. "They'd say, 'We see your Whale trader hasn't logged in three days. Has he been fired?'"
Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com
Author: Alana Horowitz
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