Apple News

Apple Computers has finally ended its epic battle against Think Secret that published confidential information about Apple. Apple first filed the suit nearly three years ago in January 2005 against the owner of the site Nick Ciarelli. Ciarelli is a Harvard alumnus who wrote under the pen name Nick DePlume and was accused by Apple of divulging trade secrets and it was also demanded that he reveal his sources.  The site was one of the three that Apple has been repeatedly targeting in an attempt to force the anonymous sources to reveal themselves.

The two parties reached a settlement the terms of which were that Ciarelli would shut down the site. The down side however for Apple is that Ciarelli did not compromise on its integrity and the names of the sources still remain a secret. Ciarelli announced to the media that he was very pleased with the outcome of the settlement and that he was glad that he would now have the time to pursue further studies and journalism seriously.

The whole issue had dragged the whole blogger- journalist controversy into the big picture. The court which tried this case was initially disposed to award the case in Apple’s favour but it was overruled by a three judge bench which held that bloggers should be afforded the same protection as journalists and hence the identity of the sources need not be revealed.

Apple has also earned a huge amount of negative reactions from bloggers and other members of the cyber world who said that it was just another attempt at controlling by the computer giant and also that lawsuit was a incredible foolish and badly thought out strategy.

Apple has emerged victor once again, but at the precious premium of losing out on some goodwill among fans and in the market for its oppressive tactics.

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