Virtually all the major financial institutions use Bloomberg terminals. I say virtually all because it’s possible that there may be a hold-out, but Bloomberg is indispensable to the financial world. It now appears that the Bloomberg sales force, the guys at the bottom of the information pyramid, has access to their customer’s usage patterns and could see what they were doing. How much more can the top guy find out about what his customers are doing?
For people who are not in the financial industry an explantion is in order. The Bloomberg system is like Google, Bing, Facebook and the telephone company combined. It’s a vast data base for people who want to look up statistics and financial facts. But it’s also a communications network that allows Bloomberg’s customer to make trades. The people who run the Bloomberg System can monitor this, and Michael Bloomberg is at the top of that system.
All your information belongs to the system’s owner. It’s always been true.
Welcome to reality. Shall we dance?
So Bloomberg is even more pernicious than Facebook.
The traders get to pay for the privilege of being raped of their privacy.
On Facebook they just own all your info and posting habits.
At what point do we free Bernie Madoff and give him a medal as a truly upstanding member of the Kleptocracy?
But the rules only apply to the little guys, the SEC will never see data theft and insider trading happening here.
Just don’t spill a big gulp on it.
I wonder what percentage of total trades go through Bloomberg. I suspect it is so small that no meaningful or reliable trading data can be applied in terms of analyzing trading patterns. The volumes would be far too small and specific to day traders and small number individual traders. I can see them using data for marketing purposes, but that would be about it.
I wonder what Bloomberg’s trading habits are?
He sure has a lot of money to go after the Constitution and people who support it.
Perhaps I could interest you in an investment opportunity. I have a bridge down in Brooklyn New York you might like.
By the way, it can’t be said often enough that EVERY SINGLE PHONE CALL and internet packet you make is -recorded- by the US government. Apple and Google both keep minute by minute records of your smartphone’s location. Google keeps records of every single thing you do at Google and elsewhere. Blackberry probably does too, I just haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere yet. The phone companies also keep a minute by minute record of your phone’s location.
Does anyone think that the government and large companies are not data mining the hell out of that treasure trove?
Does anyone think that the US government is not using that data mining to design campaigns to beat the Tea Party into submission?
Does anyone think that will change if Republicans win in 2014 and 2016?
What’s the big deal? This would only be important if Bloomberg was a fascist control freak who stuck his nose in other people’s business all the time.
Well some of us actually know how these systems work because we spent out lives building them and managing them.
So ya Phantom you could say we “think” something that flies in the face of your paranoiac outlook. But don’t let that stop you from speculating on how “they” are all conspiring to get you.
Speculating? Paranoia?
I respectfully direct your attention to the current US hearings on the IRS targeting Tea Party groups, and the US Justice Department’s much publicized seizure of FOX News telephone records.
Then there is the whole deal about General Petraeus and his bimbo eruption, wherein their supposedly secure and secret email accounts were effortlessly produced by the Justice Dept. on the say-so of one informant.
NSA records everything. Its a fact, not a tinfoil hat speculation. Even CNN reported it ages ago. Everything that runs on a wire gets recorded and its all keyword searchable.
Justice and other alphabet soup outfits data-mine the NSA records and use it against the enemies of the DemocRat party. Its a fact. They’re having hearings on it right now.
Apple/Google track your phone. They data mine their records and serve ads based on the result. Its a fact.
Drudge ran a header that said “Assume all communications to Drudge Report are compromised.” I suppose he could be wrong, but that’s costing him money don’t you think?
Large store chains data-mine store receipts and credit card info, and serve ads and fliers based on the results. There was a notorious case last year where Target Stores knew a teenager was pregnant before her parents did. They sent flyers for baby supplies to her house. Her father was not amused.
Its not speculation. Its the Reality (TM) of the current situation.
I -speculate- that the above is but the tip of a very large iceberg, but you can see this part that’s sticking out of the water. Guys are standing on it, jumping up and down and yelling at you with bullhorns “LOOK AT THIS FRICKIN’ ICEBERG!!!”
So yeah, no kidding Bloomberg is tracking terminal info. If you don’t want Bloomberg Inc. knowing what you’re doing, don’t use their service. Good luck getting anything done without it.