Apple has issued an order to cease the distribution of a new book called App Store Confidential.
According to the Cupertino giant, the book reveals confidential data about the company’s business operations, which represents a violation of the employment contract signed by the former business manager of the German App Store.
Apple’s business secrets
App Store Confidential is a book whose author, Tom Sadowski, describes as the story of his experience working at Apple.
Although it has only 24 hours on the market and is only presented in German, it already has an order from Apple to cease its distribution.
It seems that the book deals with some issues considered by the company as “sensitive” and of “high commercial value”, even calling them business secrets.
Sadowski, however, says he has not revealed anything confidential.
Sadowski, who was the manager of the German App Store until November of last year, decided to write an autobiography using as focal point what he experienced at Apple.
Apple believes that this is a violation of his contract, and has immediately sent a letter to Sadowski and the book’s distributor, Murmann Verlag, to stop the distribution of both physical and digital copies of the book, in addition to demanding the destruction of the physical volumes produced to date.
Business secrets or bad publicity?
Although Apple says they are simply applying Sadowski’s contract clauses, many readers have expressed that the book does not reveal any confidential data that supports the company’s accusations.
The news channel EN24 made a report indicating that App Store Confidential does not provide anything new that is not known to the business world.
They claim that it doesn’t even talk about important economic or stock issues.
In their opinion, Sadowski limited himself to writing “banal” and everyday experiences.
However, they admit that some passages in the book could negatively affect Apple’s reputation, which could be the real reason why they want to stop the distribution.
Apple’s spokesperson said the following:
“Apple has long promoted a free press and supported authors of all types. While we regret the way this longstanding Apple employee violated our working relationship, his actions left us with no other option but to terminate his employment — a decision agreed upon by the works council. All workers should have the reasonable expectation that employment policies will be equally and fairly applied and all companies should have the reasonable expectation that their business practices will be kept confidential.”
Neither distributor Murmann Verlag nor Sadowski has plans to stop the production of the book, since they have not signed Apple’s injunction.
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