Gawker Media, the parent company of Gizmodo US, has an official statement on the matter:
We are pleased that the District Attorney of San Mateo County, Steven Wagstaffe, has decided, upon review of all of the evidence, that no crime was committed by the Gizmodo team in relation to their reporting on the iPhone 4 prototype last year. While we have always believed that we were acting fully within the law, it has inevitably been stressful for the editor concerned, Jason Chen, and we are glad that we can finally put this matter behind us.
And here’s the DA’s official statement:
Shepard
Thursday, August 11, 2011 at 9:01 AMGood to see a positive outcome.
K
Thursday, August 11, 2011 at 10:31 AMHere Here!
chris
Thursday, August 11, 2011 at 10:54 AMThe way it’s going the worlds legal systems will be tied up by Apple. Why else do they need 70 billion but to go to court.
jeremy
Thursday, August 11, 2011 at 5:53 PMWell, you dodged a bullet there eh? Jason SHOULD have been stressed, he did soemthing unethical. Receiving stolen goods is never a good look, but I guess the DA felt it might be hard to establish. Lesson learnt? Seems not. I have to ask the fellow commentors – if it was your phone, and gizmodo just kept it when they had some idea it was pinched, the phone with your personal contacts, access to you social sites, and worse a phone your employer gave you on pain of sacking if you lost it, how would you feel? What if they then published your personal details, and called you an idiot? Tech news seems to delete all ethics from some.