Bloomberg pays fine to Economist

Bloomberg has paid the Economist Group an unspecified amount to compensate the latter for unauthorized access by former CQ Roll Call employees now working at Bloomberg.

Lucia Moses of Adweek writes, “The rival publishing and information companies say that former employees of the Economist Group’s CQ Roll Call group now working for Bloomberg continued to use their CQ log-ins and passwords to access information while working for Bloomberg and also let some of their coworkers do so.

“The cryptic statement doesn’t say much else, and reps for both companies wouldn’t answer any follow-up questions—leaving one to guess what kind of information was accessed, for how long, or whether disciplinary action has been taken against any employees.

“Some context: the competition between Bloomberg and CQ Roll Call has intensified since Bloomberg went on a hiring tear in Washington, D.C., to launch Web-based news and data service Bloomberg Government. CQ Roll Call, which provides competing services, has been a prime target. Prominent CQ Roll Call vets who have made their way to Bloomberghave included Mike Riley, a former CQ editor now leading the edtorial side of BGov; Ken Sands, a former online editor of CQ; and Katherine Rizzo.”

Read more here.