Is Confidentiality Dead?

I am taking a departure from my usual musing about marketing to small business and instead interested in this topic of confidentiality. We are all familiar with the non-disclosure agreement and if you are in my industry you routinuely sign these document protecting information for 6 months, a year or several years.

Twice this week, I have seen bloggers or "people familiar with a company" post information about new products. First, there was the video post of the upcoming and expected announcement of the Nexus One Google phone on January 5. I was stunned to see that a blogger had posted a video review of the phone. Stunned, because if there is an event slated for Jan 5, I can not imagine that Google wanted the first review of the device to be an amateur video from outside of the United States. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHGpTucczSo

Then just today I was reading on CNet's News.com that Kai-fu Lee, former Apple exec and most recently former President of Google China has provided details of the upcoming Apple tablet on his blog. He outlines dimensions, pricing and manufacturing volume as well as some of the features and capabilities of the device. Apparently, Lee cites sources close to Apple.

It is one thing that these pre-report by bloggers can impact the official public announcement and put companies in a position to manage leaks, but more importantly what do these postings mean to the company and any potential stock movement? Lee's post that Apple is prepared to manufacture 10m units could be a false indicator to the Street of Apple's expectations for the device. Is this an annual unit number? Quarter? Expectation for 2 years? As you can see, this could be quite a challenge.

One note here is that we do not know for certain if these were not strategic leaks. Being in the PR industry, on the surface they do not look like planned leaks, but instead of information obtained and distributed without permission from these organizations.

Where does all this lead us? My take is:

1) Companies in 2010 are going to wrestle more and more with this as more individuals become bloggers and have followers on twitter.

2) Companies are going to be put in a very challenging situation. As the world moves more to transparency and it is an expectation of Gen Y workers, organizations are going to be forced to holding confidential information even tighter to avoid any potential leaks. This surely will irritate employees.

3) The "media" continues to shift and influence is changing. As you see from Lee's post on Apple, he is now part of the story and positioned as an expert. This can work to a company's advantage or disadvantage.

The one thing I would encourage all companies to do is go back to the basics. We used to spend a lot of time talking about strategies if information was leaked about a new product or service. I think we all need to go back to our roots in communications and make sure we have scenario planning built into our programs for all major initiatives.

What's your take? Is confidentiality dead?