Bloomberg LP has reached out to several hundred of its clients,
including government agencies, in the wake of last week's
disclosure that it restricted newsroom access to certain customer
data, a Bloomberg spokesman said.
Meanwhile, some government agencies have contacted Bloomberg,
including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which is looking
into whether any of its information was accessed, according to
people familiar with the matter.
The FDIC joins the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department,
which are also looking into the situation, the Journal has
previously reported.
Bloomberg said last week that it had eliminated the ability for
its news division to view when a subscriber had most recently
logged onto the service, when they had first become a subscriber
and how often they accessed features like news or the chat
function.
Officials at many government agencies, including the FDIC, the
Fed, Treasury, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission have Bloomberg terminals. The
SEC and CFTC declined to comment.
The move to restrict access was prompted by a complaint from
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), a big Wall Street client. Concerns
had also been raised by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM), another
big client.
In April, Bloomberg appointed a senior executive, Steve Ross, to
a new position charged with overseeing data compliance matters,
Chief Executive Daniel Doctoroff wrote in an email to staff Friday.
Bloomberg clients were informed of the changes and the creation of
a dedicated compliance post in a separate email Friday.
Matthew Winkler, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, wrote in an
op-ed posted on Bloomberg's opinion site that the "error is
inexcusable" and said "reporters now have no greater access to
information than our customers have."
Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal and
Dow Jones Newswires, competes with Bloomberg in financial news and
some data products.
Write to Michael R. Crittenden at michael.crittenden@wsj.com and
William Launder at william.launder@wsj.com
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