The technology group Apple has come in for criticism after forcing a website dedicated to reporting on the company’s activities to close down.
The ThinkSecret site, which published news and rumours about Apple’s forthcoming products, had been locked in a two-year legal battle with the company after being accused of publishing protected confidential information.
The fight between the $163-billion company and ThinkSecret became a cause célèbre in internet circles when it was discovered that Nicholas Ciarelli had started the website aged 13.
ThinkSecret, described by the Wall Street Journal as ”influential”, was a reliable source of information on the secretive Silicon Valley company’s plans, often publishing information passed on by tipsters who had intimate knowledge of forthcoming products.
The site’s author was known only as ”Nick dePlume” until Apple sued ThinkSecret in 2005, attempting to find out the names of the sources who had leaked information to the website. Then the true identity of its owner was revealed.
The revelations about Ciarelli’s age surprised and embarrassed Apple, but despite intense pressure he refused to name his sources, citing journalistic protection under the American Constitution.
Apple claimed that ThinkSecret was publishing industrial secrets and damaging its potential earning power — although the company’s share price has more than doubled since it first launched legal action against the site — but last year a California judge ruled that the site was entitled to protect its sources.
Ciarelli, now 21 and preparing to graduate from Harvard in the spring, said he had agreed to close the site and was looking forward to the future. ”I’m pleased to have reached this amicable settlement, and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits,” he said in a statement.
The agreement is believed to involve a payment from Apple, although neither party would comment on the terms of the deal. Ciarelli’s lawyers, however, claimed a victory over the computer pioneer.
”The [US Constitution’s] First Amendment has prevailed and every internet journalist should feel some strength from what’s happened,” said Terry Gross, of Gross & Belsky, which represents Ciarelli.
Some observers said the deal might have appealed to Ciarelli because the timing coincided with the final phase of his university education.
”Apple may have simply offered a little money to prompt Ciarelli to do what he was already planning to do: kill ThinkSecret,” said Bryan Gardiner, of Wired.com. — Guardian Unlimited Â