What’s your take on Apple’s Think Secret lawsuit?

It's hard to argue that the press have the right to print anything, or even anything that's true. There is obviously a line somewhere, with national secrets on one side, and movie reviews on the other. But where the line is, and if commercial trade secrets are on one side or another, is for the courts. I'm with Gruber, especially his piece from today. It's pretty clear that the leaks are bad for Apple...

I was under the impression that you pretty much _have_ to enforce such things, regardless of whether it's a big fish or a small guppy. Failure to do so sets a precedent that could be used against you in other cases (like say if someone leaked source code or something much more damaging).

I've always hated the whole idea of Apple keeping their products a secret and then squashing those who try to predict what they will be. This is insane. I want to know whats coming out because I use these products to do actual work, not spending my money collecting cool Apple stuff. I want to be able to budget for the future and plan ahead and Apple makes it a point to prevent me from doing this. I love Apple, but hate some of their practices.

Apple doesn't care whether they win a suit against ThinkSecret, they only want to subpoena the name of their source, whereupon they'll sue the shit out of the leaker. It's totally a punitive suit intended to protect their trade secrets and to scare off other leakers.

Freedom of the press. It's as simple as that. Apple can do whatever it likes with whoever broke their nondisclosures, but since confidentiality of sources tends to get upheld in court, suing Think Secret is only going to make Apple look like a big corporate bully.

The employees of Apple are the ones that signed their confidentiality agreements, not Think Secret. The job of any journalist is to go for the story. Apple should work on policing and punishing the wayward employees responsible for leaking the info.

The employees of Apple are the ones that signed their confidentiality agreements, not Think Secret. The job of any journalist is to go for the story. Apple should work on policing and punishing the wayward employees responsible for leaking the info.

Apple is serious about not having leaksI agree with Gruber, too.

I side with the Gruber analysis.