Is Gawker's "Apple Tablet Scavenger Hunt" Illegal?

theodp writes "Not too surprisingly, Apple was not amused by Valleywag's announcement of an Apple Tablet Scavenger Hunt, which offered cash prizes ranging from 10K-100K for info about the much-anticipated new Apple device. The promo prompted a threatening cease-and-desist letter from Apple's lawyers, which Valleywag deemed the most concrete evidence yet that there may indeed be a tablet in the works. But is the Scavenger Hunt really illegal, as the attorney claimed? The jury's still out, but Slate concludes Apple's got a pretty good case, although it notes that Valleywag's unconventional Scavenger Hunt 'stunt' may not really be all that different from 'reporting' practiced by mainstream publications like the WSJ."

Comments

It's in the wording, I think....

[mark-t]

""We encourage you to stay within the bounds of the law", they say. The problem, I think, is that "encourage" isn't enough.

If they had actually _required_ that submissions be obtained within the bounds of the law, there's nothing Apple could have remotely done to them about this, even if they don't happen to like it.

How is this different ...

[thephydes]

.... to car magazines paying a bounty for pix of yet to be released models?

slashvertising

[bjourne]

Get used to it. It is exactly the same kind of campaign /. ran the six months before (and two years after, too) the iPhone came out. They are getting paid to feature articles about Apple products. It is the only way to explain why there have been hundreds of iPhone articles and about one (1) about N900 which is a phone that kicks iPhone's butt in every possible way. With free software to boot. I guess it keeps the bills payed.