WebProNews

This is shaping up as the year of suing/sending cease and desist letters to bloggers...

AP: A lawyer specializing in freedom of speech and the Internet said Wednesday he will defend free of charge a 19-year-old publisher of a Web site facing a lawsuit over an article that revealed trade secrets about an Apple computer.

Nicholas Ciarelli, publisher of the site www.ThinkSecret.com and a Harvard University student, will be defended by Terry Gross, of the San Francisco-based firm Gross & Belsky.

The Blog Herald: Jason Calacanis of Weblogsinc has received a take down notice for material on Engadget that is alleged to have included "proprietary trade secret information that is not authorized by Microsoft."

The material relates to a reader tip off received by Engadget which provided an inside peak at Windows Mobile 2005. Calacanis has attempted to contact Microsoft via its lawyers with no response as of yet and has challenged Microsoft uber-blogger Robert Scoble to respond.

Steve Rubel is a PR strategist with nearly 16 years of public relations, marketing, journalism and communications experience. He currently serves as a Senior Vice President with Edelman, the largest independent global PR firm.He authors the Micro Persuasion weblog, which tracks how blogs and participatory journalism are changing the public relations practice.