Financial data and news service Bloomberg LP on Monday moved to repair damage to its reputation as a published report said that more than 10,000 of its clients’ private messages containing sensitive pricing data had been leaked online.
The report came the same day Bloomberg News editor-in-chief Matthew Winkler apologized for the news service’s practice of allowing its journalists to access data about how clients used the company’s financial data services.
Winkler said reporters have had access to the data since the 1990s, but it was revoked last month after investment bank Goldman Sachs complained.
Bloomberg’s data services provide financial-market information and news, an instant messaging program and trading platforms to users. The services, which are mainly accessed by way of the company’s proprietary computer terminals, are widely used in the financial industry and beyond. More than 315,000 clients pay about US$20,000 per year for the right to use them.
The Financial Times said on Monday that messages between traders at dozens of large banks from one day in 2009 and one in 2010 had been put online by a former Bloomberg employee.
The newspaper said it was possible the employee intended them to be uploaded to a secure site.
The company told the newspaper that the post was a “clear violation of our policies” and added that it is considering legal action.
Earlier on Monday, Winkler apologized in an online post. He said that journalists at Bloomberg News, until recently, had been able to see when clients last accessed their Bloomberg terminals. They were also able to view broad categories of functions that clients used, such as one that looks up credit ratings.
When a client enters a command such as “BANKS,” for example, the terminal brings up a table of credit default swap prices for 30 banks. Before the recent changes, a Bloomberg journalist would be able to see the most frequently used commands by a particular user in the past week.
Goldman Sachs had complained to Bloomberg management about the practice after a Bloomberg reporter told the company that she had used log-in data as a clue in her investigation into whether a Goldman employee had departed.
“Our client is right,” Winkler said in the post. “Our reporters should not have access to any data considered proprietary. I am sorry they did. The error is inexcusable.”
The US Federal Reserve is looking into whether Bloomberg journalists tracked data about terminal usage by top Fed officials.
In a brief statement on Monday, the European Central Bank said it “takes the protection of confidentiality very seriously and our experts are in close contact with Bloomberg.”
In Asia, the Bank of Japan said it had contacted Bloomberg, while the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the territory’s de facto central bank, said it was looking into the matter.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last