I'm a bit confused by this. Gizmodo's behaviour seems skanky, but only different by degree from Gruber, in this very post, confirming that the recent photos were of a late stage prototype, or in recent posts confirming tech specs.
People are throwing terms like "industrial espionage" around. Why is publishing such details of unreleased products from internal sources, as Gruber seems to take great delight in doing, not the same thing.
If one of his moles gets fed tagged information and the release gets traced back to him, resulting in a firing are we supposed to all gang up on Gruber too?
Gruber: I’m not offended by their decision to obtain this unit and publish everything they were able to ascertain regarding it. [...] Second, publishing the name, photographs, and personal information of the Apple engineer who lost the phone is irrelevant to the story. It was the dick move to end all dick moves.
It seems to me that he made it pretty clear that he does not take offense with reporting about the prototype per se. Rather, he condemns the way that Gizmodo chose to handle the whole affair.
I think the distinction, from Gruber's point of view, is simply that Gruber is not violating any laws or contracts, while Gawker is.
Presumably, Gruber has never stolen any of Apple's property and is not under any contractual obligation to keep silent about Apple. His sources, on the other hand, are probably violating NDAs when they talk to him.
Perhaps under your system of morality, Gruber is at fault here: if he receives information from someone who he knows is violating an NDA, then he should immediately cover his ears, avoid publishing what he learned, and report the person to Apple's legal department. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think that's the position of US and California law. Under them, Gruber's sources are being naughty, while Gruber himself is not.
Confirming information as true in a situation like this is pretty insignificant once the information has been widely reported as fact.
Besides, getting someone fired by reporting "tagged" information that they willfully gave to you is not even in the same ballpark as publishing his name, putting up a big photo of him and linking to his Facebook page.
People are throwing terms like "industrial espionage" around. Why is publishing such details of unreleased products from internal sources, as Gruber seems to take great delight in doing, not the same thing.
If one of his moles gets fed tagged information and the release gets traced back to him, resulting in a firing are we supposed to all gang up on Gruber too?