Sun's Schwartz Lashes Leakers

isn't happy that some employees have "leaked"

Schwartz seems to regret Sun's loss of "top shelf coverage" of his company's business by writing a missive to employees to stop leaking information – a message that will, likely, lead to "top shelf coverage," but not in a positive way. Schwartz' message is already starting to raise eyebrows.

For example, Schwartz, in his message, was also quick to note Sun's attempts at being a more open company, including its massive, from-the-top encouragement of all employees to write blogs. That prompted this response from a Sun employee:

It puts Schwartz' efforts at turning Sun into an "open" company into a different light.

A penchant for secrecy, or "controlled release of information," though, has implications beyond corporate blogging, even if it involves bloggers.

Take a look at Apple Computer. Apoplectic that three blogs - Apple Insider, Think Secret and PowerPage reported details of future Apple products before the company was prepared to make the information public, Apple got litigious. It filed a lawsuit against the "John Doe" leakers, and asked a judge to force the bloggers to reveal their confidential sources.

Perhaps the lawsuit will have a chilling effect against anyone inside Apple who has entertained thoughts of secretly providing inside information to reporters or bloggers. But who remembers what information was leaked? It's a safe bet that most people have forgotten the details (surrounding technology code-named "Asteroid," an Apple Firewire solution.) But people do remember that Apple is acting like a corporate bully in hauling a bunch of bloggers to court.

Jason O'Grady, one of the bloggers on the business end of Apple's legal filings, pointed to new legal documents in the case last week, which shed some light on Apple's internal efforts to find the leakers. Apple security interviewed more than 25 employees who had access to the information, but couldn't find the leaker or leakers. So the company filed suit.

What's the effect of Apple's frenzy to plumb its leaks? It's turning some of its supporters, like O'Grady, into critics. O'Grady writes:

Even if Apple wins its lawsuit, it's losing some support in the marketplace.

This may sound counterintuitive, but trying too hard to control information so a company can get good spin can lead to a lot of bad spin.