A Licensing Notice Behind the Market Data on CNBC's Pages

The item CNBC published under this heading is not a news report. It is the legal terms of service that govern the market data Refinitiv supplies to CNBC's websites and mobile applications — boilerplate that any reader using those figures is bound by, even if few ever read it. Refinitiv, the financial-data business now owned by London Stock Exchange Group, published the notice under a 2021 copyright.

The central rule is that Refinitiv and its third-party providers own the data. Users are granted no proprietary interest in it, and the notice classifies the information as confidential and trade-secret material. Display, reproduction, distribution and the creation of derivative works are prohibited except as expressly permitted — and the main permission granted is use for internal purposes.

Limited copying is allowed. Users may copy, paste and distribute internally an “insubstantial amount” of data, provided the distribution is incidental to their business, is not part of information vending or commercial publishing, and identifies Refinitiv or its providers as the source where practicable. “Insubstantial” is an economic test rather than a mathematical one: the data must have no independent commercial value and must not be usable as a substitute for a Refinitiv product or service.

The notice also reserves the right to withdraw or condition access to certain data elements, and it disclaims all warranties and liability. The data is provided “as is”, is not investment advice, and the vendors accept no responsibility for inaccuracies, delays or losses from reliance on it. Separate protections apply to data supplied by Euronext N.V. and SIX Financial Information.

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How Refinitiv's Ownership Rules Protect Its Data Business

Treated as a business document rather than a news item, the notice shows how the economics of market data work — and where the legal boundaries sit for anyone who reuses it.

Why Refinitiv Guards the Numbers So Closely

The document's commercial logic is straightforward: Refinitiv sells access to data, so any republishing that lets a third party read that data without paying is effectively a free substitute for a paid product. That explains why “insubstantial amount” is defined in commercial terms — the test is not how many figures are copied, but whether the copy has independent value and could replace a Refinitiv service. Small quoted numbers in a news story can pass the test; a competing data widget built from the same feed almost certainly cannot.

What the Disclaimers Mean for Anyone Relying on the Data

The “as is” clause and the liability waiver are standard in the industry, but their practical effect is real. Refinitiv and its third-party providers do not promise the data is uninterrupted, error-free, timely, complete or accurate, and they accept no liability for losses caused by relying on it. The notice also reserves the right to withdraw or condition access to certain data elements — including on the instruction of third-party owners such as Euronext N.V. and SIX Financial Information. That is a reminder that the data displayed on financial news sites is licensed, not owned, by the sites themselves.

Using Market Data Without Breaking the License

For readers and publishers who reuse figures from CNBC's market data pages, the license sets three practical limits:

  • Small, sourced quotes are the safe zone. An “insubstantial amount” — data with no independent commercial value that cannot substitute for a Refinitiv product — may be used, with attribution where practicable. Bulk tables, live feeds and anything that replaces a vendor service require written permission.
  • Copying is internal-only. Data may be shared inside an organisation when incidental to business purposes, but not through the press, mass media or the internet.
  • Do not build critical workflows on the feed. Access to some data can be withdrawn or conditioned, and the vendors make no warranty of accuracy, timeliness or continuity — so any process that depends on this data carries its own risk.