Nvidia requires the signing of a very extensive confidentiality agreement before providing information on future products.
There is one topic journalists rarely talk about - so-called Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA). NDAs are particularly common and useful in technical journalism - for example to gain access to early test copies. This allows journalists to take their time before the market launch to take measurements and get a well-founded picture of the new product. Many companies only send out advance test copies if the journalist has agreed to an NDA or at least a blocking period.
Heise checks every NDA carefully and only agrees if it concerns a concrete product, a clear and not too distant expiry date is given and the contract text does not contain any passages that could impair our journalistic work.
However, some companies also use NDAs as weapons. They want to get journalists not only to keep to publication dates, but also to enforce sound reporting with far-reaching agreements and horrendous threats of punishment. Those who do not bend are cut off from the flow of information.
Attack on journalistic work
Sometimes companies clearly cross borders. On June 20, Nvidia USA sent an invitation to a large number of journalists - including us - to sign a very extensive confidentiality agreement "by June 22, 2018 at the latest".
The NDA should apply to all information from Nvidia, so it did not refer to a specific product or information. There was also no concrete expiry date. It was also full of conditions that ran counter to journalistic principles. Our legal department clenched its hands over its head while reading the document.
It says (translated into German): "The recipient uses confidential information exclusively for the benefit of Nvidia". In other words, journalists are only allowed to write what Nvidia fits in. Thus Nvidia degrades the independent press to a marketing instrument.
And it goes even further: "Notwithstanding the expiry of this agreement, the recipient's obligations in respect of any confidential information expire five years after the date of its disclosure to the recipient". Who signs this Nvidia-NDA, must submit thus for five years to the will of the American manufacturer - one publishes something in this time without permission, threatens the plaintiff.
But Nvidia goes even further: "The protection of information that is a trade secret never expires". In other words: If Nvidia thinks that information is a trade secret, then in the worst case the journalist should never talk about it.
We do not sign
It goes without saying that an independent media company cannot sign such an agreement under any circumstances. Nevertheless, Nvidia let us know that "many journalists" had already signed the agreement. No wonder, as in future only journalists who sign this NDA will receive advance information and test copies.
We make it clear: This and similar NDAs are not signed by Heise online and c't - no matter from which company they come. Rather, our journalistic principles require that we create transparency and publish the original of Nvidia's Gängel-NDA here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/8ts3gb/german_hardware_reviewer_heise_online_publishes/
https://www.heise.de/newsticker/mel...A-als-Maulkorb-fuer-Journalisten-4091751.html
TL;DR
Heise.de refuses to sign this, many journalists already signed this though. Only postive comments in reviews pre-release.
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