Leader: Is Apple being hypocritical?

On hearing news that a large computer manufacturer is suing a gossip site for leaking product specs, most people's initial reaction might be to assume it's one of perhaps HP, Dell or IBM.

Free from suspicion would have been Apple who has long relied - albeit unofficially - on the power of gossip to create hype around its product launches.

For the company's legion of fanatics second guessing Steve Jobs' next announcement is practically an Olympic sport. Will it be an 80GB iPod or will it be a Headless Mac? Will it be a video iPod or will it be the Apple home entertainment centre? (Take our poll on this very subject.)

It's long been assumed that Apple deliberately drip-feeds certain details to kick-start the rumour mill. In the past it has also 'accidentally' published product specs online ahead of an official launch, quickly taking them down once they realised 'their mistake' - though not before whetting the appetites of the Mac community.

Rumours have been good to Jobs and Co.

But now it appears the rumour mill has got out of control and Apple is unhappy about the level of detail revealed when the Think Secret website spilled the beans about a variety of pipeline products.

Apple should probably have realised that after years of 'nudge, nudge, wink, wink, we'd hate it if this got leaked' spin doctoring somebody was either going to misread the signals or take a mile having been given an inch.

And perhaps it does. After all, the old leaks were getting a little predictable. A week or so before the Macworld Expo you could guarantee something would find its way into the mainstream so Apple needed to raise its game. Cynics might suggest the court case is creating just the right level of hype - they might also suggest it will be settled quietly once the damage is done.

Certainly launching such a lawsuit for breach of trade secrets has had the effect of legitimising the claims made by Think Secret.

But the lawsuit has also had the effect of raising criticism of some hypocrisy on Apple's part.

As with any company Apple has the right to protect its product designs and to keep its cards close to its chest - but it can't have it both ways. It either stops flirting with the rumour mill or it accepts that a little more detail may leak out now and again than it is happy with.