Not only inside sources leak secret information to the press. Oftentimes companies themselves -- and sometimes their partners -- will unwittingly reveal secret product launches through their own digital slip-ups. On Monday, a bug in Apple's iOS 6 beta revealed a major upcoming upgrade for Twitter's iOS app. It was discovered only a day before Twitter's official announcement, but still diminished what could have been a more sizzling product launch.
Twitter's slip-up is by no means rare. Major tech companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft have all posted information about a new product or software update prior to launch. Considering how often it happens, you might think the companies are breaking their own information embargoes on purpose.
"In some sense [companies] are worried that others will copy their products. But the reality is that few would want to copy their competitors -- they would like to be different. But they really want to keep [products] secret because they want to surprise the market," Forrester analyst Ken Dulaney told Wired in an e-mail.
Even though companies sacrifice the element of surprise when they leak their own information, Dulaney doesn't think it puts a new product or service at that much of a disadvantage.
"Leaks are okay because they increase mystery," he said. "No one knows for sure whether they're accurate but it inflates the publicity machine. It’s a byproduct of implementing secrecy."
With Dulaney's advisory as a backdrop, let's take a look at some recent "we broke our own press embargo!" goof-ups, and whether they ultimately hurt or helped the companies that made them.
Just about 90 minutes prior to its I/O keynote on June 28, Google posted images of its new Nexus 7 tablet and Nexus Q streaming media device on the Google Play servers. Days before, another slip-up also outed Android 4.1, aka Jelly Bean, prior to its official I/O announcement.
While the leaked photos and product listings generated a bit of buzz on their own, they also deflated much of the wow factor that Google tried to generate during its actual on-stage announcements. After all, everyone waiting for the keynote to begin -- whether at home, or attending the event live at Moscone Center -- was checking Twitter and tech blogs for relevant, Googly information. It's a good thing, then, that Sergey Brin was still able to wow the assembled audience with his Google Glass parachuting stunt.
Google is no stranger to leaking its own secret information. Right before unveiling a Gmail facelift in October 2011, Google posted a video to its YouTube channel showing off the redesign and many of the mail service's new features. In an attempt to fix its mistake, Google took down the video, but not before tech sites saw the screenshot and started judging a product that hadn't yet seen the light of day.
When contacted, Google said it had no comment on information leaks.
Apple
Even Apple, a company famous for its internal information control, has blatantly broken its own press embargoes a few times. A few days before the company announced anything about its latest iPhone -- the iPhone 4S -- Apple Insider was able to sleuth out the name, an image, and a few details about the phone from an iTunes beta Info.plist file, which Apple made public to developers.
As with all Apple rumors and leaks, the technology press jumped on the story, causing a huge stir right before the 4S announcement. In this case, the information wasn't posted in a particularly visible place, making the leak less of a full-on internal security breach than a slight oversight. A much more embarrassing leak occurred when Apple published actual images of an unannounced product: The 27-inch LED display released last summer.
What people had originally thought was a part number for a new MacBook turned out to be the 27-inch Thunderbolt display, confirmed by Apple when the company posted photos of the new display prior to announcing it. It wasn't exactly the most exciting accidental product leak, so its outing didn't generate much buzz.
Apple wouldn't comment on the leaks for this story.
Microsoft
This May, on the day before it was set to launch its Windows 8 Release Preview, Microsoft outed availability details about the operating system on its Windows Hardware and Driver Developer Blog. In this case, the one-day-premature blog post didn't do much to fuel mystery around the product: The next day, publications posted their Windows 8 Release Preview first-looks.
Last summer, Microsoft also gave away one of its research projects: a social search network. The URL for socl.com published a teaser page for Microsoft's social platform, then dubbed Tulalip. After people sniffed it out as a Microsoft-backed social network, the company pulled the teaser and put in the following: "Thanks for stopping by. Socl.com is an internal design project from a team in Microsoft Research which was mistakenly published to the web. We didn’t mean to, honest."
Whether it was an honest mistake, the news got people talking about what Microsoft could be doing in the social space. It certainly fulfilled the mystery-inducing component of a shrewd, orchestrated company leak. Less than a year later, Microsoft officially revealed its "experimental" social network, renamed So.cl. But just as Microsoft originally stated in its placeholder language, it's clear that So.cl is experimental, and not one of Microsoft's main, or even secondary, focuses. The "mistake" was most likely a mistake after all.
When contacted, Microsoft had no comment.
Verizon and HTC
It's even worse when one of your partners accidentally leaks the details of one of your unreleased products. Such was the case when Verizon posted specs for the HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE smartphone more than a month prior to the phone's official release. It was a big snafu for Verizon, since it accurately listed most of the device's specs -- to a less than enthusiastic response.
Intel
As much as Intel held its partners to an embargo when talking about its third-generation Ivy Bridge chips, the company ended up having to blame itself for leaking details about its processor lineup. More than a month before its official Ivy Bridge launch, Intel posted a PDF that listed most of its quad-core desktop chips and dual-core notebook chips. The PDF listed everything from clock speeds to Intel HD Graphics. Intel removed the PDF soon after it realized its blunder.
Leaks aren't only limited to the tech world. Last week, a video interview accidentally published on CERN's website leaked the Higgs Boson discovery a day before the actual announcement. It's clear that no company or organization -- no matter how secretive or tech-savvy -- is immune to digital accidents.
Unless, of course, these ostensible leaks are all elaborate charades designed to generate buzz. After all, everyone wants to know other people's secrets.
