Here's a fine kettle of fish:
Earlier this week, a hacker broke into Twitter and stole a trove of business-related documents detailing the workings of the popular startup. The hacker, supposedly, plans to publish the documents at some point—but before he does, he gives them to Techcrunch, the king of tech blogs.
Mike Arrington, Techcrunch's boss, said yesterday he plans to post the docs himself. A hue and cry ensues among TC's loyal readers—mostly against publishing the purloined docs. Arrington is unmoved, and began posting stuff this morning.
This is pretty cut and dry. I think Mike, who I know and like quite a bit, is terribly in the wrong on this one. There's no public right to know here, which is the usual thresh hold in publish-don't publish questions. In fact, I wonder if Twitter could take action against Techcrunch asserting theft of trade secrets. What do you think?
Oddly, we won't know if there's a right to know until we see what's in them, yeah?
Church
Jul. 15, 2009 11:48:am
at 11:48:am
Exactly—which would be true of virtually any confidential documents you stole from any company in the world.
Josh Quittner
Jul. 15, 2009 12:31:pm
at 12:31:pm
Ethically, Arrington is certainly way over the line, but that doesn't exactly shock me. Maybe Puppet Walt Mossberg will lay into him a little.
I wonder whether anyone would care about the details, except Twitter's direct competitors, who probably can't use the info directly anyway without risking a lawsuit.
Depends on if it's code, statistics, gossip...
dennitzio
Jul. 15, 2009 18:13:pm
at 18:13:pm
Eh, from what I understood, they were only going to publish financial forecasts and the tv show proposal.
NiroZ
Jul. 16, 2009 08:36:am
at 08:36:am
These docs are pretty complete and may even provide a slight roadmap for some competitors. http://bit.ly/18ns0n
mastersoftrivia
Jul. 19, 2009 10:03:am
at 10:03:am