Comments on: Oh My God! Apple Killed Think Secret! Those Bastards!

By: A sad day for Apple customers and bloggers — Shooting at Bubbles

A sad day for Apple customers and bloggers — Shooting at Bubbles — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 04:10:02 +0000

[...] we get the obligatory deadpool type posts or the it was nice knowing you type posts. The only person I have seen yet today to have said [...]

By: ElKonk

ElKonk — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 14:40:05 +0000

I’m sorry, but screw apple. Why the hell do the give a flying @#$% about leaked secrets. God Damn money hunger bastards.

By: Geek News Daily Podcast » Blog Archive » Geek News Daily #4 for December 20, 2007

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 02:04:48 +0000

[...] Apple kills Think Secret [...]

By: Dog Turd Recycling

Dog Turd Recycling — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 06:43:53 +0000

Jobs is a scumbag, Maczealots are retards, nothing new here, move on.

By: JO

JO — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 21:18:47 +0000

I think TS got a cool $2,000,000 out of it.

By: Sam

Sam — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 21:14:43 +0000

I keep reading posts that this guy enticing employees to illegally break confidentiality agreements doesn’t hurt apple. This is nonsense.

1) Releasing product information allows competitors to change their strategies maybe weeks in advance. For example if someone had leaked the details of the iphone before it’s announcement perhaps Nokia, Research in Motion or Microsoft (famous for vaporware) would have announced that they are also planning an “advance touch screen interface” — that would have stolen the thunder from the iphone announcement and maybe hurt sales.

2) Allowing employees to break confidentiality agreements with impunity sets precedence. If this breach is OK then staff might think other leaks might also be OK. We don’t even know if some employees took bribes to release info. In the high competition world of tech the smallest chink in your armor might bring you down — look at high flying AMD or Palm (or a hundred other tech companies) now.

By: Peter G.

Peter G. — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:46:31 +0000

EH@46, what I said certainly isn’t false. You may not like it, but that’s a different matter. Newspapers simply don’t have the legal freedom you think they do to publish illegally obtained trade secrets.

And although there’s a strong First Amendment argument to protecting confidential sources– the one issue that did get addressed in court in this case– that still doesn’t mean ThinkSecret owned the “moral high ground” in the original conspiracy.

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By: Danny

Danny — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:44:01 +0000

What brain dead losers. All ThinkSecret did was excite the base – nothing was revealed that hurt apple. I love it that leaking on the Mac Mini, easily one of Apple’s LEAST interesting products, is what finally put him over the edge.

By: Ayrkain

Ayrkain — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:35:12 +0000

The law does not dictate what is morally right. Apple is protecting their investment, albeit in a heavy-handed blunderiffic sort of way, but that doesn’t mean it was the right way to do so.

It would have been funny if they’d been able to find the leaker by feeding them fake info to disseminate to TS, then mock them in a keynote or something.

By: EH

EH — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:54:59 +0000

Peter G@28 (and several others):
“Newspapers aren’t legally allowed to do what ThinkSecret did, either, unless there’s some compelling public-interest justification.”

This is absolutely, 100% false.

By: SB

SB — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:41:13 +0000

The “how would you feel if your trade secrets…” argument does not hold water. How many years has the iPod been on the market? How many companies have tried and failed to copy it’s success? It’s competitors can’t even use existing products that have been out for years to “play catch up” so why in the world would Apple be so fearful for some details to get out before the product is even out? Product information is released all the time pre-launch and very rarely does anything other than promote the product. This is just BS corporate paranoia that hurts Apple in terms of PR much more than the leaks could ever could.

By: Don

Don — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:17:10 +0000

Apple would have a difficult time arguing that anyone got a “competitive advantage” from the leak of this information. Good luck finding an example of anyone but fanboys benefiting from the info released by Think Secret.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:10:08 +0000

And I should also point out that the reason so many people love Apple is because they create such innovative products. No trade secrets equals no more reason to be innovative.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:08:21 +0000

The moral high ground in this particular case would have been to give up the source, who was breaking the law (or at the very least his/her signed agreement with Apple) by giving up trade secrets.

By: Saagar

Saagar — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:06:52 +0000

WHen will you get off your title crisis Duncan On a flip side, apple fans and share holders will miss ThinkSecret for sure..

By: Robert Jones

Robert Jones — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:05:19 +0000

Nick Ciarelli committed industrial espionage. That is a CRIME. Being a child does not excuse him.
Yannick Desjardins, #27, is a miscreant and needs some kind of mental rehab. or counseling. He should look in the mirror when he tries to demonize someone and ask himself just who the devil is that reflection?

By: Tim Swan

Tim Swan — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:02:05 +0000

Apple has an obligation to protect their investors. Employees sign non-disclosure agreements. Think Secret stepped into the middle when they published proprietary information — freedom of the press is *not* unlimited.

If you think that Apple is in the business of creating some sort of utopian ideal of a company you’re bound to be disappointed by reality.

By: The Machinist

The Machinist — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:01:34 +0000

the guy wasn’t stealing secrets, he was trying to guess what products Apple would com up next.

By: snyggast

snyggast — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:47:22 +0000

if this was about MS it would be on national news not TC.

By: Dozeen

Dozeen — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:27:48 +0000

Apple won their suit because legally they were right, as one commentator reported : “statutes forbid you from acquiring or publishing without authorization information you know or have a reasonable basis to know is a trade secret. They are usually invoked when the secret that is revealed gives a competitor an advantage”

They think secret guy actively enticed Apple employees to break their confidentiality agreements. In this case Apple is more right than he is.

By: PXLated

PXLated — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:21:09 +0000

Dave #24 hits it closest…Since the agreement is private, how do we know he took the moral high ground? How do we know that he didn’t in fact have to pay Apple? How do we know that Apple didn’t have him by the short hairs and took the moral high ground and settled for no payment from him? After all, what got him in trouble was publishing proprietary documents, not just the rumors.

By: DaHut

DaHut — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:20:46 +0000

I am now absolutely convinced that Techcrunch is in love with Apple. Apple kills an information blog, much like Techcrunch, and you write a flimsy paragraph about it? Come on, where are the polls and the picket signs? Where is the list of sites where we can go and say our formal goodbyes. Now if this was a site or service that one of your board members were on we would have a full two page write-up of how it came to be and is no more. So sad.

By: John D.

John D. — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:02:00 +0000

Why is it OK for kids to commit crimes? They can cause just as much harm as an adult. If they get away with it, they grow up and become adult criminals. Their morals go uncorrected and they become adult criminals. It seems that morality has gone to hell in a hand basket. People seem to get a thrill out of doing immoral or illicit acts if they think that they can get away with it or won’t be prosecuted because they are underage.
Why is Apple the bastards? Think secret and Tech Crunch are the bastards. Where is Tech Crunch’s morality. Right is right and wrong is wrong. This forum ought to be shut down.

By: What's Hot Today.com

What's Hot Today.com — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:58:16 +0000

How much do they walk away with?

http://www.whatshottoday.com

By: Even Steven

Even Steven — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:50:43 +0000

You people are really nasty.
What would you say or do if all of your SECRETS, personal habits, moral and immoral, were posted for all to know because of some spy in your midst(business or personal)?
Wouldn’t you go after the publisher of the “DIRT”?
The kid was a scum bag trying to make a name and MONEY for himself by committing a crime that you fools call freedom of the press.