Photo Credit: gmotors.ie

Last week Audi revealed the design of the new Audi A7 sportback, the luxury sportback that is to go head to head with the Mercedes-Benz CLS and the Porsche Panamera. In the midst of all the fanfare on the launch was the fact that Audi suffered an information breach. The launch which was scheduled for Monday July 26, 2010 was widely available on the web on Sunday July 25th.

Leaked designs are common place in the auto industry, and is sometimes done deliberately to gauge the views of the press and the consumers at large, but this leak suffered by Audi took the fizz out of the bottle because by Monday there was nothing surprising to unwrap.

I would like to believe that Audi uses endpoint security tools like enterprise rights management to protect their designs and technology, but these tools should be used to protect press releases and press packs up to the day and hour the product is to be launched. I am sure that Audi would have spent hundreds of thousands of Euros, if not millions to launch this highly rated car but some party poppers could not wait to spoil the show.

Tools like enterprise rights management can be used to distribute press packs electronically and enabling access to the information at a time chosen by the press office. This means the press office have complete control of the time and day the information becomes available to the public domain and should be considered as a serious tool in the press office’s arsenal to make information available when it chooses.