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Think Secret Shutting Down

Posted by kdawson on from the settled-out-of-existence dept.

A number of readers are sending in the news that the Mac rumors site Think Secret will be shutting down, as part of the (secret) settlement of a lawsuit Apple filed in 2005. Apple had claimed that the blog, published since 1998 by college student Nick Ciarelli, had revealed Apple's trade secrets. The only other detail of the settlement that has been revealed is that Think Secret was not forced to reveal any sources.

4 of 240 comments (clear)

  1. Hope He Got Some Money by Apple+Acolyte · · Score: 3, Informative

    I really hope Nick got some money in exchange for agreeing to terminate his site. In any case, thank you for your years of work on behalf of the Mac community, Nick.

    --
    Part of the hardcore faithful who believed in Apple long before it was cool again to do so
    1. Re:Hope He Got Some Money by necro2607 · · Score: 3, Informative

      "As it stands now, the "leaked" project that started this whole mess has been to most peoples knowledge, canned."

      Are you sure you're talking about the right project? According to this article, the "leaked project" that provoked Apple's lawsuit was the Mac Mini, which was presented two weeks later at MacWorld Expo, and needless to say, has most definitely not been canned...

  2. A year ago this would have been sad, contentwise by ThatbookwritingWheel · · Score: 5, Informative

    But since the "issues" he had with Apple, the content on thinksecret wasn't really much beyond what someone with an Apple Developer Connect membership could access. To many articles on the latest seed of this or that. Before that ThinkSecret sometimes had some real gems every now and then (and was plain wrong lots of times also)

    --
    We are all packets in the Internet of life!
  3. Re:Dangerous Slippery Path by ubernostrum · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are two issues people tend to go after here: the "I thought trade secrets weren't protected!" issue and the "OMG First Amendment!" issue. Both objections have serious problems.

    Let's deal first with trade secrets. The revelant federal law is quite clear, and lays out some pretty stiff potential penalties for both Think Secret (who almost certainly knew they were receiving an inappropriately-disclosed trade secret, and thus would have triggered the statute) and the person who talked to them (who almost certainly misappropriated a trade secret or improperly transmitted one, and thus would have triggered the statute). 10 years' federal imprisonment or $5m fine is nothing to sneeze at, so we're talking about something that -- from the standpoint of the law -- is a pretty serious offense.

    Now, as for journalism and the First Amendment: Think Secret originally attempted to claim the traditional right of journalists to protect anonymous sources, but there's serious doubt about whether they ought to receive it. The traditional protection afforded to journalists' sources exists to ensure that information which is important to, or which impacts the public good will be brought to light. But in this case the information does not serve any high and lofty public purpose: this isn't Watergate or the Pentagon Papers, it's some company's product lineup. And while we have freedom of the press, that's not the same as carte blanche to break the law: if you're going to wrap yourself in the Constitution, you need to go to the judge with something better than "Well, we really only did it because we can, and because we thought it'd be cool." Think Secret didn't have anything better to tell the judge than that, and so the judge (rightly) laid the smackdown on them.

    The result is that they've been backed into a settlement which puts them out of business. Whether this means Apple is the next Google is the next Microsoft is the next IBM is the next Dark Lord Sauron, I don't know. But Think Secret basically screwed themselves, and have no-one to blame but themselves.