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Online Apple Secrets Publisher Finds Heavy Hitter

By Samuel Fineman
January 28, 2005

The 19-year-old publisher of a Web site facing a recent lawsuit over an article about a top-secret $499 Apple computer originally had to plead for legal assistance. Not only did Terry Gross, a partner in the San Francisco-based Gross & Belsky LLP, step up to the plate, but he appears to be willing to play hardball.

Apple Computer Inc. is suing Harvard University student Nicholas Ciarelli's Web site, www.ThinkSecret.com, alleging it, and Ciarelli's company, dePlume Organization, LLC, illegally published company trade secrets. The Jan. 4 lawsuit also targets the Web site's unnamed sources for the leaks.

Ciarelli, who described himself as “an enthusiastic fan of Apple's products since an early age,” started www.ThinkSecret.com in 1998 when he was 13. The site, which accepts advertising, is read by Apple enthusiasts and industry analysts because of its exclusive stories about company developments.

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