Inside a Bloomberg terminal contract

Zachary Seward of Quartz has gotten a copy of a typical Bloomberg contract and discovered that it allows the company to review customer usage “solely for operational reasons.”

Seward writes, “The contract should help shed light on whether Bloomberg faces any legal risks following the revelation that, until April, all of its journalists could view data about how and when customers used their terminals. Bloomberg executives have called that access a ‘mistake‘ and ‘inexcusable,’ and the company has hired outside lawyers to advise it on handling the fallout.

“Oceanside’s contract with Bloomberg was written and signed in 2001; it has been renewed every two years, and remains in effect. The city posted the contract online. The passages in it that pertain to surveillance haven’t changed in more recent contracts drawn up for terminal subscribers, according to people who have signed them. Some Bloomberg customers, like large banks, undoubtedly sign much more complex contracts than Oceanside’s.

“We aren’t lawyers, and won’t pretend to be. But there are two passages in Oceanside’s contract that seem to permit Bloomberg to monitor usage of the terminal. However, both include important caveats:

• “Lessee acknowledges and understands that Lessor may monitor, solely for operational reasons, Lessee’s general use of the Services.” (The lessee, in this case, is Oceanside, and the lessor is Bloomberg.)
• “Lessor reserves the right to audit and monitor (whether physically or electronically) (i) the requests of Lessee for the Information, the Exchange Data, and Additional Information and (ii) the number of Authorized Computers enabled to access the Information, Exchange Data and Additional Information.”

Read more here.