Of course we all love gossip. Will Brad and Jen get together again, or is Angelina in the picture for good? Which famous show business couple is headed for divorce next? Is that actor who was arrested for DUI going to spend a few months in rehab? The supermarket tabloids used to be the only purveyors of this stuff, but it’s now spread throughout the mainstream press.

With the eyes of the world on Apple Computer, it’s no wonder that the legal skirmishing with Mac rumor sites has dominated the technology pages in recent weeks. Is it a freedom of the press issue, or just some folks breaking the law by stealing trade secrets? Or a combination of both?

I expect a lot of you don’t remember MacWeek. Although oriented towards business users, it was a must-read for any dedicated Mac user. Its most popular feature, “Mac the Knife,” contained rumors, speculation and general chit-chat about possible future Apple products.

During the dark days at Apple, and with declining ad revenue, MacWeek bit the dust, but its legacy lives on, at least so far as rumors are concerned, in several popular Web sites. Now in those days, I always believed that Apple executives would sometimes feed the rumor mills strictly to test out product ideas, although you could never know for sure. Otherwise, I expect the sources then were of the same variety as they are now, people who knew the inside details about a new product and wanted their 15 minutes of fame, even if the names couldn’t be revealed.

The death of “Mac the Knife” created a vacuum filled by Apple Insider, PowerPage, Think Secret and a few others. Now maybe they didn’t enjoy the same credibility that MacWeek achieved, but, as you know, the quality of their work improved greatly over the years. Of late, some of the rumors have been dead on, or close enough to accurately reflect the basics of a new iPod, new Mac or new software release.

Over the years, Apple merely tolerated the ongoing gossip. I rather suspect some folks in the company were amused by the interest in what they were up to. Consider how things are on that other computing platform. I mean how many sites devote themselves to the goings on at Dell or Gateway? I’m not holding my breath.

However, when Steve Jobs became the ship’s captain, things changed drastically. The information pipelines were restricted. Where Mac publications were given advanced looks at new products in order to get the information in print when those products shipped, now they had to get in line with the rest of the world and wait until the official public announcement.

Rumor sites that dared to print actual photos of a new product got letters from Apple’s legal team demanding removal of those photos. Since these sites are small operations, run part time by one or two people; teenagers in some cases, they didn’t have the deep pockets to defend themselves, so they complied.

The court decision last week that gives Apple the right to get information from a Mac rumor site’s email provider about the source of new product leaks could, perhaps, signal the potential death of such information resources. Or at least the ones that deliver accurate information. Now I don’t pretend to know how things will ultimately turn out. There are appeals, and appeals of those appeals to consider. And I suppose it’s always possible for one or more of those sources to turn themselves in to get the online publications who protected them off the hook. Of course, I don’t think that’s likely right now, but in the end, they’d have to consider the havoc they’ve caused and whether it was all worth it.

Whatever happens, the decision will definitely set the boundaries of how far rumor sites can go before triggering legal action. If the courts paint a broad brush on what constitutes a trade secret, those sites will most likely have to fold up their tents and move on.

Of course, we’ll still speculate on future Apple products, but without any solid information to feed that speculation, it’s a pastime that’ll lose its charm. We’ll have to move on to some other topic, I suppose, but don’t the wrong idea. I do not for a moment approve of someone violating a confidentiality agreement and revealing information about a new product or service to the press, with just one exception. And that is whether that information might affect the health and welfare of the populace.

But in the end, an online world without Mac rumor sites just won’t be as much fun.

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No doubt you’ve read the story that Microsoft is ditching its Mac OS X MSN client. MSN? Yes, it’s Microsoft’s online service, the one once touted as a potential AOL killer. Yeah, that one. But does it mean that the few Mac subscribers to MSN will have to look for another ISP, as some reports suggest?

Not quite, as you’ll see shortly.

But there’s the general perception that Mac users are shut out of some ISP options, and it’s perfectly true. Have you seen all those TV commercials for People PC, the low-cost dial-up service from EarthLink? Yes, pay $10.95 and get everything you need, including a Smart Dialer that’s supposed to automatically select the best available numbers to get connected.

But when you read the fine print at the Web site, and it’s not easy to find, you discover that it’s only available for Windows users. Why should this be? Well, I suppose the dialing software, but I can’t imagine not being able to produce a similar application for the Mac in a few weeks, if you put a full-time programmer to the task.

All right, but aren’t there other choices for low-priced Internet service? Well, have you seen those TV ads for Netscape? It beats NetZero, so they say, except that it’s not available for Mac users either, and you have to do a little sleuthing to realize that. Will that ever change? Do you care?

Oh, yes, there are low-priced supports that support the Mac, such as FasterMac.net. And, here’s where NetZero beats Netscape hands down . Like the other online services provided by United Online, NetZero does have Mac software. By the way, FasterMac.net doesn’t require any special software, unless you want to use its Web accelerator feature.

Now about Microsoft’s decision about MSN for Mac OS X. Well, if you’re a member of this service, don’t despair. You won’t have to use Windows to get connected. In fact, you’ll still be able to access your MSN account via your Web browser when support ends on May 31, and your email via Entourage. Actually, the MSN software was, itself, no more than a glorified browser, rather a buggy one in fact, so there’s not much lost here.

Now about everyone’s favorite whipping boy (or girl), AOL. Yes, it still comes in Mac form, but the software has, once again, lagged behind the Windows version. In addition, Windows AOL users also get free virus protection software and spyware detection. Of course you don’t really need the former, at least for now, and spyware issues are irrelevant on the Mac platform, but those ubiquitous TV ads simply don’t make clear that Mac users are shut out. I suppose it may smack of false advertising, though I suppose if you look closely enough, maybe there’s a tiny disclaimer somewhere. I didn’t see it, however, and my eyesight isn’t that bad.

Of course, more and more of you have gone broadband, and there you have plenty of choices, if you live in a reasonably densely populated area, that is. Your local cable TV provider, your local phone company, some independent providers and even a satellite service can set you up and place you on the fast lane. You generally don’t need any special software, just some basic information on configuring your Mac to access the service and retrieve email. This can take all of five minutes, tops.

So in the scheme of things, not having Mac compatible versions of Netscape and People PC might not be such a great loss. What is strange, however, is the fact that EarthLink, which is, as I said, the parent company of People PC, happens to be Apple’s default ISP. The company supposedly has superior Mac support. In fact, it says at EarthLink’s Web site: “According to the J.D. Power and Associates 2004 Internet Service Provider Residential Customer Satisfaction Study, EarthLink is ranked highest in customer satisfaction among high-speed and dial up Internet Service Providers.”

I suppose that could be true. On the other hand, I’ve had encounters with EarthLink over the years that weren’t quite so favorable, and some of my clients have quit them in disgust. Maybe it’s like the cell phone industry. There are lots of bad apples, and you just pick the one that has the smallest number of blemishes. That being said, though, the tiny ISPs that cater to a single city, or have a custom orientation, say primarily for Mac users, tend to deliver more personal and knowledgeable customer support.

Oh and by the way, I’ll still keep my MSN membership, at least for now. It has some interesting content, even though most of it is available to non-members too. And Microsoft pledges continued Mac support, but obviously it’ll concentrate on products that deliver a profit. That clearly puts MSN out of the picture.

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In theory, the concept of Napster To Go sounds neat. You pay just $14.95 a month and get access to a huge music library. Download all you want, and even transfer to a supported music player. What a lovely way to get a big music library, if you can get past the concept of renting rather than owning, of course.

However, when you check things out a little more carefully, you’ll find that the reality is something else again, and it’s not just the fact that there is no Mac version, and the service doesn’t support the iPod. That probably won’t change anytime in our lifetimes, at least so long as Apple remains the dominant player in the industry.

You see , as my guests revealed in this week’s episode of The Tech Night Owl LIVE, not everything is quite as it seems. For one thing, not all of the songs in Napster’s library are available for download through the subscription program. Many tracks are only available for purchase at the standard rate of 99 cents per track and so on and so forth. That’s something not made clear to you when you check out the company’s poorly organized Web site.

And even if you do have a Windows box, a supported PC, and you decide you can live with the limitations, better read the fine print, such as these sentences: “Napster automatically renews your rights to all of your Downloads at the beginning of each Subscription Month (as defined below) so long as your subscription remains current. This means that in order to play any Download after the end of a Subscription Month, you must log on to the Service so that Napster can renew your rights for those Tracks. The Client will count the number of times that you play a Download, including while you are offline, for royalty accounting and analysis purposes.”

All right, it makes sense that if you are buying a subscription on a monthly basis, it’ll have to be renewed to continue using the music. What’s not made clear is whether Napster will tolerate a situation where your credit card cannot be charged for some reason. Perhaps the account number was changed because you lost the card, or perhaps you ran over your credit limit. What happens then? Well, nothing is said about a grace period, so I suppose the music just stops. That could, conceivably, mean you’ll have to download all your tracks again even after you renew your membership. Or maybe not. It just isn’t explained.

I am also troubled by the fact that Napster is tracking your use of that music. While I understand the legal issues involved with rights and all that, what about your privacy? Why should you surrender that information to a third party? What right do they have to know which songs you play and how often you play them?

There’s also this troubling sentence: “Napster reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, the Service (or any part thereof) with or without notice to you, without any liability to you or to any third party.” So consider that you’ve spent hours downloading songs, and Napster suddenly changes the rules. Do you have to download all of them again? Will some songs remain available, while others are removed from the subscription program? And, of course, they can change the price at any time too.

All right, I suppose with a subscription music service, these rules probably make a lot of sense from a legal standpoint. But even if you want to power up that Windows box to give it a try, don’t go into it wearing blindfolds. There are downsides to all this cheap music, aside from the fact that not all the tunes are available as part of that subscription.

Despite these issues, some folks on Wall Street have the impression that Apple is in trouble, that its overwhelming market share is bound to dip big time at any moment. This is one of the reasons why the stock price has dipped in recent days. I suppose the fact that Napster To Go lets you download your songs to a handful of music players must make the difference over all the other subscription plans, but they forget that none of those players bear the iPod label. How soon they forget.

Sony’s new Flash-based music players have also garnered more attention than they deserve. There have been alleged iPod killers from day one, and they all eventually self destructed. Remember, they are merely digital music players. The iPod is a cultural phenomenon, a way of life. And that won’t change overnight.

But what about the subscription model? Does it make sense? Actually, I agree with the guests on the radio show that Apple might consider it as an alternative, perhaps as an expanded way to sample tunes before you buy them. Right now, you get 30 seconds at the iTunes Music Store, and that’s it. Of course, that’s the way their contracts with the music companies work.

But here’s another idea: What if you could, say, download all the tunes you want and use them on your computer or iPod for a limited trial period, say 30 days, so you can then decide whether or not you want to buy them? There are no renewals, and no ripping to CDs. The clock stops at 30 days, and that’s it, and you cannot download the same song a second time. Would you be willing to pay, say, $10 a month for this added capability, and maybe a few extra special offers, such as discounts on the iPod and selected accessories? Maybe Apple could call it The iPod Club.

Sounds like a plan. What do you think?

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