2:49 PM
I only ask because I care, Kotaku:

Is signing an NDA a typical thing in journalism? I've heard of an embargo:

Principle 2.5. Embargo

A time limit that prohibits the publishing certain news before the given time, is acceptable from the professional point of view only when it is for the benefit of informing. An embargo is, in principle, an uncommitted agreement between the source and the media. Respecting of the embargo is meaningful only when based on a professionally grounded reason: the text of a speech before the speech is actually done, a business report sent in advance, an information on the event which is to take place (meetings, conclusions, ceremonies...) It is unbecoming to use the embargo to achieve greater publicity.

(From the Code of Ethics for Slovenian Journalists, believe it or not.)

But an embargo is a voluntary thing. Signing an NDA....seems slightly unseemly for a journalist. Of course, by Slovenian standards, if Kotaku had gone under a self-imposed embargo, they also wouldn't have been able to use the fact that they were embargoed to gain publicity, as they have done with the NDA. So perhaps they do know what they're doing.

(Then again, the NDA has undercut Kotaku's ability to post links to XB360 rumors. So perhaps it's simply Microsoft that knows what they're doing.)