While I think the green dot/red dot controversy is overblown, the paranoia is driven by the ubiquitous aspect of the terminals combined with the massive number of workflows that are centralized on Bloomberg terminals. Here's a sampling:
* Proprietary email and IM systems integral to interactions with customers and counterparties * Trading systems in virtually every asset class. TOMS, the fixed income system, is the defacto standard for bonds. * One of the top financial news gathering organizations * Best-in-class financial data and analytics
So when you think of what someone could do with access to the system, it almost boggles the mind. Ability to know who is looking at what. Who is saying what to whom. And in certain asset classes, the best possible data on who is buying what. A rogue support person, for example, could do incredible damage to the company. Hopefully they have good mechanisms to control that - the fact that we haven't heard about it thus far is a good sign.
Given the overlap of workflows available on the terminals, plus the relatively low-cost of extra features once you're already paying for the terminal, makes me view Bloomberg as an anti-trust case waiting to happen. I wonder if they think so too - and to feed more paranoia, I've wondered whether that explains why Mayor Bloomberg is in politics. (Either that and/or to promote BGOV - growth in the government sector as wall street retrenches).