[Op-Ed] Who's Afraid of Apple Computer? (part deux)


In July 2002, Apple withdrew the press passes of several Mac media people for Macworld New York, including, most notably, Graphic Power. Now Apple has gone a stage further by suing the webmeister of Think Secret, Nick de Plume, who today revealed the reality of the 'Flash iPod', as IGM reported earlier today.

In an even bigger story recently, Think Secret revealed the killer 'Q88' or 'headless iMac'. Now, as The Register points out, Apple has been forced to reveal its hand by slapping lawsuits on Think Secret, demanding the site remove the material and reveal its sources.

And that, as eWeek comments, is exactly how Steve Jobs likes it.

In 2002, Apple tried to quash sites which reported rumors - but the corporate media which did report the rumors were left unscathed.

There are sometimes when Apple behaves awfully like Microsoft. In 2002, IGM said,

"In our view, reporting of rumors of new or revised product is fair game. Auto magazines snap and publish pictures of unreleased cars on test. Political reporters make a living out of background briefings."

And we don't think Bob Woodward has ever revealed the identity of Deep Throat. We agree with eWeek that Apple is within its rights to go after contractors who spill the beans. They sign an NDA and they know what the consequences are if they break that. Nobody held a gun to their heads and told them to leak the information.

As a sidenote, we wonder whether Bill Palmer will withdraw his criticisms of Think Secret following MWSF, should Apple confirm what their lawsuit suggests: by releasing Q88 at a price within the $499 ballpark.

And, while we're on this, we should tip our hats in the direction of Mr. de Plume, particularly as this is, after all, the entertainment industry. Being hit with lawsuits by fairly large multinational corporations is never very entertaining.