Wall Street is a domain that is thick with regulations regarding the exchange of information and confidentiality. So financial professionals were taken aback when they learned that reporters have been improperly accessing the usage records on their Bloomberg terminal accounts.

In “Bloomberg Admits Terminal Snooping,”  Amy Chozick writes that “reporters were trained to use a function on the company’s financial data terminals to monitor login activities of clients in order to advance news coverage…” That included using the information to break news…often about those clients.

The fact that the reporters were willing to overlook the impropriety of this highlights just how far we have to go in navigating privacy issues online. According to security management firm Guardsmark, there are currently two billion people online. Another three billion people are expected to join the online world in the next decade. Included among them are Internet resources like Bloomberg LLP, used by thousands.

A surprising amount of data we would consider private can be accessed online. Unless we are very careful to protect that information—or until a new and comprehensive set of regulations are put in place—such breaches will remain commonplace.