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In a Leaked Memo, Apple Warns Employees to Stop Leaking Information (bloomberg.com)
Apple warned employees to stop leaking internal information on future plans and raised the specter of potential legal action and criminal charges, one of the most-aggressive moves by the world's largest technology company to control information about its activities. From a report: The Cupertino, California-based company said in a lengthy memo posted to its internal blog that it "caught 29 leakers," last year and noted that 12 of those were arrested. "These people not only lose their jobs, they can face extreme difficulty finding employment elsewhere," Apple added. The company declined to comment on Friday. Apple outlined situations in which information was leaked to the media, including a meeting earlier this year where Apple's software engineering head Craig Federighi told employees that some planned iPhone software features would be delayed. Apple also cited a yet-to-be-released software package that revealed details about the unreleased iPhone X and new Apple Watch. Leaked information about a new product can negatively impact sales of current models, give rivals more time to begin on a competitive response, and lead to fewer sales when the new product launches, according to the memo.
I hate it when companies force NDAs on business operations. I had one that said we couldn't talk about any aspect of the business, even though there was nothing to hide except corrupt business practices (which is probably the reason for it).
Name a company that doesn't ask their employees to protect corporate secrets.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
As a former Apple diehard (been clean about 10 years now), I really can't believe what major league douche bags Apple has become. I only stopped using their computers because my university didn't support them on their network at the time, but between incredibly overpriced machines and devices, suing everyone under the sun and over matching them on lawyers, threatening and almost abusing employees on the regular, trying to intimidate everyone that has anything to do with them, making devices that are almost impossible to repair and then deliberately breaking third party repairs with software updates which seem to have no legitimate purpose and appear to only be pushed to break the repairs, spam dialing 911 from their repair centers and then not having any idea how to stop it, supporting terrorists (I'm all for protecting people's data and standing up to the man about it, but you lose your right to have your data shielded when you openly murder a room full of people), their general smugness about everything, and probably a few other things I'm missing, I am very glad that I haven't contributed a dime to them in the last decade. I think back to how awful M$ was in the '90s (and they're still not much better), and I feel like Apple has actually surpassed them in terms of shitty and abusive business practices. It would almost be impressive if it wasn't so horrifying.