After fighting a lawsuit launched by Apple more than two years ago, Apple rumour site Think Secret has closed its doors. The site has a note saying that it has reached a settlement with the computer company over the lawsuit the computer company filed against it for leaking company secrets.

Although the note says that it is "a positive solution for both sides," I find it difficult to agree. No doubt any kind of settlement that doesn't involve millions of dollars or jail time is a relief for Nick Ciarelli -- the Harvard student who started the site when he was 13 -- but I fail to see how it's positive for anyone, including Apple.

This case is separate from another case involving bloggers and company secrets, in which Apple tried to get PowerPage, AppleInsider and Think Secret to reveal the names of the sources they got their information from. In that case, a lower court ruled that the bloggers weren't protected by California's "journalist shield" law, and that they would have to turn over the information. An appeals court later disagreed, however, saying they were entitled to the same protection as journalists.

Think Secret was sued separately for divulging trade secrets, a more serious offence -- and while the site didn't have to turn over the names of its sources, it has still been forced to shut down. And Apple comes off looking like a hammer-wielding bad guy, beating up on a blogger for getting leaks from Apple insiders (about products that never even came to market).

I know that keeping secrets and then revealing them to an adoring public at Macworld is a time-honoured Apple tradition, but this is ridiculous. Why didn't Apple take on the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times for the same thing? Because it knows that it would have a huge fight on its hands, and would likely lose. But a 19-year-old student is going to settle and get on with his life.

As Mike Masnick notes at Techdirt, this is likely to have a chilling effect on the practice of journalism -- and I'm including publications like Think Secret and Apple Insider in that description. Apple should be ashamed of itself.