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Apple Blacklists "Rumor Promoting" Publications
Billy_D_Goat writes "Talk about control, Apple has now decided it can block users from recieving media passes at MacWorld Expo It blacklists these users by deciding if they run "rumor promoting" publications. This includs the webmasters of sites which have little to do with rumors or speculation such as Graphicpower.com/." Probably
just bitter cuz Steve's thunder seems to get stolen at every show, and
their lawyers can't seem to stop it ;)
Yes, it can. At the last MWSF, rumors were flying of huge product revamps. New iMac, G5, some sort of PDA-like device, all of it. When the "only" thing introed was the new flat-panel iMac, lots of people bitched and whined like it was Apple that promised them all that stuff, and only gave them one thing. Caused a lot of people to overlook how great the new iMac was. Of course, the more reasonable people were impressed, but still. ;)
SIGFEH
I like rumor sites a lot. I read a number of the Mac rumor sites religiously because I'm constanly curious to find out what's next and when. But I support Apple in doing whatever it needs to to cut back on the flow of future info. Why?
Back when I was a mere bouncing boy I had this wonderful portable computer called an Osborne 1. 1mhz cpu. Two floppy drives, a 300 baud modem and a CRT all running CP/M (DOS without subdirectories for you youngins). All this in a portable case the size of a suitcase. I loved the thing and did much productive playing of infocom games on it. (I had DBase 2, but could never figure out why I'd want such a thing).
Then came tell of a NEW Osborne coming out in, like, six months or so. And this one would run PC-DOS!!! Almost instantly Osborne went out of business. Their cashflow dies as people canceled their orders for "old" computers and planned on waiting for the new one. And along came this _other_ company selling their 'compaq' briefcase computers. I imagine Adam Osborne was pissed.
The moral of this story? Rumors can kill companies, and while Apple isn't small enoght for that to happen easily, I know for a fact that I've told people to "wait a month" to buy a mac based on rumor reporing of a new Powerbook coming real soon now. So, go Apple. Feel free to limit the rumor folks. And rumor guys, please keep working. I'd just die without my inside scoop.
True, it doesn't ban them from the show. In fact on one of the sites they mentioned that many of the reporters will get a normal pass rather than a press pass purely so that people on the Apple stands will be allowed to talk to them without a member of the apple marketing machine present.
What is the issue here is the princible of the thing (a sadly overused phrase here). Why should sites which are legitimately reporting on Mac events not get in free to do their reporting and others do simply because they happened not to report something that apple didn't like? Keeping in mind here that many of the 'rumours' reported are gained through legitimate investagative reporting rather than leaks from apple.
You are an idiot. Yes it is okay since a corporation is doing it. It's their game and they can set what ever rules they want. Read the article, they are denying free passes to "rumor sites". Please tell me how these sites have some right to attend the event for free. They can still buy passes if they want. Is Apple/IDG being stupid and potentially alienating their custommers? Possibly, but they have the right to do business anyway they want.
-matt