It is all over the net how Cisco resorted to legal action to silence a security researcher who found vulnerabilities in its routers. I just can't imagine how anyone in the company thought this was a good idea. Especially since, of course, he quit and presented the paper anyway, and the PPT slides are now online.
Less publicized has been Cisco's effort to silence shareholders who are trying to get a vote to add human rights considerations to those it uses to certify resellers. Cisco has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to omit the proposal from the agenda for the company's next annual meeting because they claim they've done enough in this area to satisfy the request.
These are only the latest incidents where companies resort to the law to silence information, seemingly unaware of the PR debacle that may follow. My sense is that company's are losing this battle by relying too heavily on legal tools, without understanding the environment they find themselves in. These PR nightmares will continue as long as companies fail to adequately weigh the risk of using legal tools that prevent information flow (ie. trade secret law, SEC processes) against norms and technology (ie. full disclosure, infowarrior) that promote information flow.