NYT: To Cut Online Chatter, Apple Goes to Court

To Cut Online Chatter, Apple Goes to Court
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: March 21, 2005


....the relationship between the press and (Steven) Jobs has remained remarkably consistent: while fostering intense secrecy both at Apple and at Next Inc., the company he sold to Apple in 1996, he has at the same time become a master of orchestrating new product buzz.

Now, however, increasingly concerned about losing control of his product story in the face of the Internet's echo chamber, Mr. Jobs has chosen to sue several sites that traffic in Apple news in an effort to determine if his employees are leaking product information.

Because the lawsuits could potentially force courts to define what a journalist is and to broaden trade secret protection for corporations, Mr. Jobs has been bitterly opposed by public interest groups and some reporters, who cite Apple's status as an underdog in the computer industry and the company's role in creating new avenues for electronic media.

But Mr. Jobs's decision to go after the operators of the small Internet fan sites is not surprising to many Silicon Valley veterans, Apple enthusiasts and former executives of the quirky computer-maker, which is based in Cupertino, Calif.

He has always had a reputation for being iconoclastic and confrontational. As a result, despite Apple's tradition of positioning the Macintosh as "the computer for the rest of us," some Apple watchers said the move could actually serve to strengthen Mr. Jobs's marketing magic by deepening the secrecy - and thus the buzz - he has always tried to maintain around the company's future products....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/21/technology/21apple.html

like the GOP. I think what Job's is doing will create a opportunity for people to hate Apple.

I'm with stupid!

non disclosure agreement and sometimes another one for a certain product, if you sign these ndas then you are aware of what can happen if you leak info.

They sued several websites even though the editors didn't sign any non-disclosure agreement...