SAN FRANCISCO — Apple on Thursday put to rest the last of a series of lawsuits it brought in a losing and costly effort to put a stop to Web leaks about its product plans.
The suits raised questions about whether independent Web publishers should be accorded the same legal protections as traditional journalists. They were aimed at the gaggle of Apple enthusiasts who have made both a sport and a business out of pre-empting Steven P. Jobs’s big product announcements.
Nicholas M. Ciarelli, who operated a Web site for Apple rumors called Think Secret, was sued by Apple for publishing trade secrets in January 2005. In a brief statement Thursday on his site, Mr. Ciarelli said that he had reached a settlement with Apple and that he would stop publishing Think Secret.
Mr. Ciarelli, a senior at Harvard, would not comment on whether Apple had given him money to persuade him to cease publishing. But he said he was pleased with the outcome of the negotiations.
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