Remember when Apple said they were going to sue Thinksecret for publishing leaked rumours about products?
They've gone ahead and done it. From Silicon.com:
The suit, filed in the Superior Court of Santa Clara County, California, aims to identify who is leaking the information and to get an injunction preventing further release of trade secrets. However, specific mention of "trade secrets" appears to indicate that at least parts of those reports are spot on.
Apple said in a statement that the company's "DNA is innovation, and the protection of our trade secrets is crucial to our success".
"Apple has filed a civil complaint against the owner of ThinkSecret.com and unnamed individuals who we believe stole Apple's trade secrets," Apple said in its statement. "We believe that Think Secret solicited information about unreleased Apple products from these individuals, who violated their confidentiality agreements with Apple by providing details that were later posted on the internet."
Doesn't sound very fair to me to take TS - which is, after all, a media outlet - to task for an employee's decision to break their confidentiality agreements. Dan Gillmor agrees:
Apple claims that it's not trying to suppress free speech. Bull. That's precisely what the company is doing here, well beyond keeping internal secrets.
I'm fairly sure of this: If the party leaking information to Think Secret had sent it, say, to the San Jose Mercury News or New York Times, and had those publications run the news, Apple wouldn't be suing them. Both have deep enough pockets to defend themselves.
Keeping things under wraps is one thing - but if Apple insist on shooting the messenger, then they're going to find it an impossible struggle to justify why.
