Mathew Ingram has a take on Apple's current legal/PR moves I agree with - specifically, the way they have shut down ThinkSecret:

Think Secret was sued separately for divulging trade secrets -- and while the site didn’t have to turn over the names of its sources, it has still been forced to shut down . Meanwhile, Apple comes off looking like some power-crazed South American dictator, the kind who can’t stand it when the media reveal government secrets and so arrests the entire press corps. I know that keeping secrets and then revealing them to an adoring public at Macworld is a time-honoured Jobs tradition, but this is ridiculous.

Apple's PR machine is properly praised for their great ads, but Jobs really, really needs to understand that making Apple look like a mob boss is not a good thing. Secretive works for Apple, but thug won't. Now that Apple gets a lot more press and notice, this kind of behavior is going to start dragging down their image.

A lot of Apple sales are driven by the "cool" factor the company has generated. This kind of behavior, if it continues, could end up killing that particular goose.

Technorati Tags: marketing, advertising