[passwordoops]

"prices aren't a trade secret"

Is there a basis for this in recent case law? And how difficult would it be to enforce against a 3rd party actively publishing pricing, and therefore competitive, strategy?

Nope I'm not staying they should shut down or they will get sued, but they should do the sensible thing and talk to a good lawyer

[makeitdouble]

Not a lawyer either, but I think there is a more obvious angle to this: publicly traded companies can be audited, publish costs to investors, list their creditors and amount when going bankrupt, ask for tax rebates by declaring their expenses etc. In many circumstances their money flow needs to be transparent.

Not being allowed to expose the buying price of a service would go against many of these procedures/obligations.

We could look at it the same way disclosing one's salary can't be illegal: how do you then apply for a loan for instance ?

[spxneo]

there hasn't been any caselaw from my knowledge where they went after a customer for revealing the price of a software license

prices wouldn't be enforceable because knowing how much you charge isn't revealing anything proprietary (because you have to tell your customers in order to get them to make a decision).

Also not exactly possible to expect confidentiality around prices because your banks and their staff will see it..

[passwordoops]

Just to be clear, we both agree we're not lawyers

But I can argue that pricing is part of my strategy and revealing pricing information in cases where I explicitly forbade it is potentially damaging because it allows a competitor to undercut me. I'd be surprised if they do go after a client, but my concern for these guys is they are not a client. They are an aggregator of this information. If any of these quotes were given with the caveat that pricing should not be shared, then a named company who's on the pricier side might have a good leg to stand on arguing this site damaged their business with what amounts to a trade secret (pricing strategy). At three very least or could result in a letter and headaches. Asking for who gave the information is something I would totally see too, especially if this was a client who jumped ship, if anything else just as a scare tactic/revenge

[thayne]

> it allows a competitor to undercut me

So, allows them to compete with you...

IANAL, and don't know how the law actually applies to this, but prohibiting customers or potential customers from disclosing price information clearly seems anti-competitive to me. And in some ways it is even worse than giving you an advantage for you over your competitors, if all your competitors also keep pricing a trade secret. In that case it gives you and your "competitors" an advantage against the customer, because the customer can't effectively compare prices, at least without expending considerable effort, which can result in the customer paying more. Especially for smaller companies with less negotiating power.

[airstrike]

also not a lawyer, but unless your contract includes specific confidentiality around the price, I don't think disclosing it is an issue. it will be very, very hard to argue it's a trade secret because it is not, in fact, a secret

[e12e]

> Also not exactly possible to expect confidentiality around prices because your banks and their staff will see it..

There's a big difference between seeing data in the course of your job, and being legally able to share it!

[CPLX]

By default you’re legally able to share it. It’s your data, you’re telling someone how much you paid for something.

Something can’t be a trade secret if it’s not a secret at all, and if you’re the seller, and the information is a description of something someone else did (ie how much the buyer paid) then it’s not your secret to defend.