Newspaper speaks out on Apple ruling

Apple's hometown newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News, on Friday published an editorial speaking out against the recent court ruling that the Mac maker could seek the e-mail records of a Web site that published information about an unreleased Apple product.

The newspaper called the ruling "wrongheaded" and warned that companies could declare a wide variety of information to be a trade secret and seek to find out who provided the information to the media.

In particular, the newspaper warned that the decision could hurt the ability of the public to learn about information provided by internal whistle-blowers. "The media's role in a free society is to publish information that is accurate and of interest to the public, not to protect the commercial interests of private companies," the editorial stated.