Is providing information early a crime?

Gordon Crovitz, the former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, writes about how the New York attorney general pressured Thomson Reuters into stopping its policy of providing access to consumer confidence data early to some clients and what that might mean for other forms of information.

Crovitz writes, “Mr. Schneiderman’s legal theory would have banned Paul Julius Reuter from using carrier pigeons in the 1850s to get news to his subscribers in Europe faster than anyone else. Charles Dow and Edward Jones wouldn’t have been able to use the new ticker machine in the 1880s to sell brokers real-time Dow Jones news. Michael Bloomberg would be banned from delivering his financial data only to people who can afford $20,000 a year for a terminal. Tens of thousands of business publications, trade associations and private research firms that charge for content would also fail a level-playing-field test.

“Mr. Schneiderman coerced this settlement by invoking a 1921 New York law called the Martin Act, which gives the attorney general broader discretion to bring criminal or civil cases for fraud than any other state or federal law.

“The Martin Act is infamous as the vague law resurrected by Mr. Schneiderman’s predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, in his campaign against Wall Street a decade ago, when he forced investment banks to jettison their research departments. The result was a steep decline in Wall Street analysis of public companies.

“Mr. Spitzer, disgraced in a prostitution scandal, is now running for comptroller of New York City, where he could invoke the Martin Act again—giving other financial capitals like London and Hong Kong a further advantage.

“A final point: The Wall Street Journal is not available free, which is another violation of Mr. Schneiderman’s mythical level playing field. If that’s really a crime, this columnist pleads guilty.”