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Think Secret Shutting Down
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.
Insert cloaked link to myminicity.com here, because I suck cocks.
Since when is "protecting trade secrets" the same as "censorship". I think it's time for /. to abandon the tag feature.
It sounds like the creator of Think Secrets is pissed off but trying to act otherwise. He alludes to being "pleased" with the result, saying that he is now able to focus on his "college studies". Had college studies been important to him in the first place, he wouldn't have spent so much time on other projects like this. Most likely this statement is just a weak attempt to save face.
Don't give up your source and shut down, or give up your source and don't shut down. You won't be getting any more "insider tips" either way.
So now corporations will determine what independent press is able to say or shut them down? Our news is already skewed enough as it is by the various corporate news outlets who cater to this and that political party.
IMO, this is not a win for Apple. They have killed a very pro-Apple website which was read by Apple fans and customers. This was not some site that was trashing them, spreading damaging lies, and promoting non-Apple stuff. They were getting the fans excited and trying to sell more products, which is exactly what Apple is trying to do. If you kill off your friends, you are shooting yourself in the foot.
It's sad that this came out the way it did, but kudos to Think Secret for taking the cyanide pill for us. At trial, this case could have resulted in a terrible outcome. If Apple had won in court, it would have set a harmful precedent: you must reveal sources. By agreeing to some (probably less-than-ideal) conditions, Think Secret and their legal team has saved us all from that precedent. Thank you!
I work for a large Telecom corporation, and I had to sign quite a bit of paperwork regarding trade secrets. My training material, which did not include any usernames, passwords, server paths, etc., was not allowed to leave the building. We were granted access to quite a bit of information that was not intended for anyone outside of the company.
That being said, this is an excellent outcome for the Source. As the Source does not have to be revealed, something within Apple, perhaps at a significant level, will not be losing their job for divulging information that he had probably signed agreements to not disclose but felt the information should be shared anyway.
The person who wins this is the Source, as he most likely violated enforced company policy and came out of it free and clear.
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
You can be pro-Apple yet severely damage them at the same time. Anytime you expose secret projects that the company does not feel is ready for prime-time, you risk losing any forward momentum that you would have had over opposing companies in development. This is why corporate espionage is considered a serious problem. As it stands now, the "leaked" project that started this whole mess has been to most peoples knowledge, canned.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Well I have serious issues with this coming from both sides. I frankly am enamoured with Apple, OK? But part of that means I checked thinksecret.com daily for new insights. So I'm very sad to see it go and I don't think appleinsider is an adequate substitute. Hell, whole legions of the mainstream and online press have used thinksecret as a source countless times. It's been a leader in the community as a source of Apple news. So I think this is a sad development and not the best outcome for anyone, including Apple. But what were the issues?
1. Trademarked or copyrighted knowledge was released by thinksecret. From what we know, it was information provided by a source outside of thinksecret itself, and we presume the source was inside apple. The actual information apparently concerned a firewire musical instrument, from before 2005, that never was released. So should thinksecret be held liable for releasing a trademark secret? Legally, I don't know the answer. I would bet any hard-copy publication, such as the New York Times, would balk before publishing trade secrets. The times and other major newspapers have admitted to halting publication of government secrets on those occasions when the government has convinced them of the security risk. And publishing trade secrets probably is illegal. Thinksecret was always skating on thin ice, that's why we liked it, after all. So, let's agree that it was a legal blunder and thinksecret had to admit this.
2. Lawsuits in themselves are stressful. A college student involved in a suit against a major corporation must be overwhelming. Even if there was a legitimate way to thwart Apple, would any college student have the resources to undertake such a fight? And from the beginning, wouldn't Apple be aware of its strength in that regard? I'd like to think that if I were faced by a lawsuit from a major corporation I'd have the money to afford a single lawyer for at least a few hours of work. But the truth is, I don't.
3. Apple allowed thinksecret to publish many secrets. Did it finally get mad, or was there some other precipitating event? I don't think Apple would sue thinksecret over a product that was never released. At least it would have no reason to continue that suit. I think that Apple was concerned over a related product, whose secrecy was more important, and whose developing team may have had some overlap with the firewire guitar, or whatever it was. So they wanted to protect some other development. A company with a number of great engineers can't just fire a development team because they're worried about trademarks leaking from one disgruntled employee.
4. Nick may have acted illegally. His settlement makes him happy because he doesn't have to go to jail or even be arrested. That would make me happy too. Furthermore, as far as we know, nothing is to keep him from working on a similar site in the future, perhaps with lessons learned and a tempered attitude. Of course, if he checks with Apple each time he wants to publish a new secret, well, we won't really be reading him any more than we read MacWorld, now, will we?
See also: dumb share traders who buy on rumors and sell when the real products arrive and aren't up to rumors specs.
Slashdot: Apple is closing a website! Apple are against freedom of speech! The horror!
Truth: That website was leaking company information, that's illegal.
Slashdot: Apple aren't supporting BootCamp for Tiger users in 2008! The bastards!
Truth: Apple said that BootCamp on Tiger was a Beta,since the beginning. Also, it won't stop working in 2008, you just won't be able to re-install it.
Slashdot: Apple is forcing me to pay $50 for a green iPod nano! How greedy!
Truth: Nobody is forcing you to get a green iPod nano, and that $50 also gets you twice the storage capacity.
Etc, etc.
Slashdot. News for nerds, nonsense comments.
I'm with you that the whole suing a fan-site thing leaves a bad taste in the mouth but really the site was more than that. If ThinkSecret got word of a product a few months away from launch and it seemed credible enough, that really does give the competition an opportunity to get an early start on a similar product. That could have an effect in the millions of dollars range. I'm not saying everything ever printed does that but then again Apple doesn't sue for every rumor every printed, in fact, they've done so only a handful of times. Presumably when a 'rumor' report hits far too close to home to have come from anywhere but inside of Apple.
Apple certainly isn't the only company to use the 'upgrade to a higher model and get X' tactic. It's grossly common in the Auto industry as well. Take Audi, for example, sales of the A4 with the 3.2 engine were suffering because everybody wants a 2.0T engine, which is not a terrible amount slower, much cheaper and more upgradeable. What's Audi to do? Well, cut out options from the 2.0T and make convenience features like 'memory seats' only available on the 2.0T. And the engine upgrade option is much more than $50.
The point is that if you really enjoy the product, you'll dish out the extra cash to get more of it. More memory, more engine. The concept is definitely not unique to Apple.
I just wasted your mod points! HA!
There are free operating systems that will run well on your Mac hardware and do not shut down websites for revealing "trade secrets". In fact, there are no trade secrets and you are invited to join in on the development process. Begin here.
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
Yeah, it makes it ever so much easier to keep selling the old stuff to the cluele<<<<<< faithful, instead of the much improved, better performing, cheaper gear coming out in only 2 months - which you can then sell them as well. An Informed consumer is a Bad consumer.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Either that, or they aren't as irrational as you think.
Dell also uses similar bundling tactics, or did last time I checked.
I have no objection to them doing this, by the way, it's up to them, but it dissuaded me from buying from them a couple of times.
The issue seems to be Dell's desire (or perhaps Intel's desire) to hide the cost of top-of-the-line CPUs, so any PC that has one fitted tends to be bundled with a lot of other high-grade options which (presumably) are intended to enhance the purchasers perception of the value they are getting.
what this means in practice is it's very difficult to get a Dell with their nicest case and motherboard, great speakers, all the frills, but put a Celeron class cheapie processor in the machine. Their website wont allow cetain combinations that should be valid in the sense that the motherboard in the model selected could accept certain cheaper and slower processors.
Understandable but sucky. They may say they only validate a limited range of combinations and "everything nice but the CPU" is not one of them, but one could say "but did you ever TRY?"
This wasn't an apple fan site. They were profiting from corporate espionage. As it is, everything apple does is watched/imitated by companies like Microsoft and Dell. If say something like the iPhone was leaked a year earlier, someone could have beaten them to the market. The point is Apple has a right to not have its company secrets told to everyone. It is not your right to know that information. It will never be your right to know that information. It's just plain arrogance (and stupidity) to think that it is.
www.unofficiall.com
Apple's success and failure are caused by their beyond-anal control-freak-mentality. It's to their credit because the extreme control over the quality and consistency of their products are directly related to their popularity and good reputation. (That wireless network sound device, though, should be recalled. It simply can't play music well enough without skipping!) But their control-freak-ness is also a tremendous inhibitor of their progress in the business world which affects how many homes Macs are found in. People often get the stuff for home that works like their stuff at the office... 'thinking different' is too risky when it comes to business needs.
While I have made numerous predictions about Apple in 2008 and in 2009, I also assert that the results of 2008's observations of Apple will determine if Apple gains a much more significant market share. And among the things that could prevent their growth and success in 2009 are Apple's attitude to customers both new and old and Apple's ability to handle a cultural change brought on by new consumerism and a surge of newbies -- in short, it depends largely on whether or not Apple can keep up with their public-perceived reputation and deliver on it.
A big part of what keeps Apple level in its market is the fact that their user base has little growth and little attrition. So for the most part, the same group of people using Apple 5 years ago are the same people using Apple today. But with the iPod breaking through that closed-culture barrier and heavy demand for iPhone, Apple's popularity surge will prove to be quite a trial for Apple in 2008. Are they prepared to handle it? Will they handle it? If they fail, the public will not forget it for another 10+ years... they won't lose their long-term base, but they will have lost credibility in the eyes of the general public. On the other hand, if they manage to deliver in 2008, 2009 will see a tremendous amount of market share for Apple.
The reality is that people have always know about Apple and have always had a kind of interest in it. But the part that always kept people a few steps away has always been the commitment necessary to make that change. But if more people make the change and are successful, that will bring the masses closer to doing the same... for the moment, much of those masses are still waiting and watching.
Apple will have to get over their control-freak nature, though. Their carefully managed culture will get utterly trashed by the public stampede they've been trying to generate. If they try to control that mob, they will be risking utter failure.
What reporter is going to cover the launch of a new Apple product that everyone knew about before hand?
Answer: they don't. Right before Jobs came back, Apple seriously had this problem with websites like MacOS Rumors (which isn't what it once was) leaking VERY ACCURATE info about 2-3 weeks ahead of the new cycle. When the products actually shipped, the tech press didn't care because if they reported anything, it was the rumor beforehand.
Advertising costs Apple a lot of money and the free advertising they get from reporters is very important.
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