Business Research
Source: NY Times
“Web Site Lets Visitors Peek at Corporate Carping”
Here’s something we haven’t seen before. People from hundreds of companies internal e-mail memos to Phillip Kaplan, today he begins to make all of them public and searchable. From the NYT article, “The publisher of the Web site whose name is a vulgarism for “failed company” plans to spin off part of that site into a new unit. Drawing from a deep well of material sent by fans of corporate comeuppance, Philip J. Kaplan said he would roll out a new site, InternalMemos.com, this morning…Mr. Kaplan said InternalMemos.com would eventually feature thousands of missives, and will, like his initial Web site, offer subscriptions. For $75 a month, customers receive full access to all information sent to both InternalMemos.com and the failed-company site, which includes memos and e-mail messages not displayed on the sites.” The site also contains several memos available to read for free. You can subscribe to only the InternalMemos.Com site for $45/month. The article does not mention how or if Mr. Kaplan authenticates this material. All web info quality judging skills are necessary here.
See Also: “Dot-com Deathwatch Puts Memos Online” via News.Com
From the article, “…Ira Rothken, an attorney at San Rafael, Calif.-based Rothken Law Firm. “Internal memos can be considered trade secrets, and in some cases if he were to publish those, he could be liable for monetary damages for publishing trade secrets,” depending on his involvement in obtaining the papers. Still, he acknowledged that the law around such practices is complex and publishing the documents could be protected under the First Amendment.”
See Also: Direct to InternalMemos.Com

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