NVIDIA Looks to Gag Journalists with Multi-Year Blanket NDAs

Seems like Nvidia about to release a turd of a card. 1180 might not even be better then a 1080ti. They doing it on purpose cause of lack of competition.

Or the opposite. That the timing of this NDA - with the specific June 22 deadline they gave to sign it by - is a signal that the 11-series is imminent. And in the current era of clickbait/youtube/rumor/sensationalism and the insane competition to be first not only to review but first to leak details, maybe Nvidia doesn't want to freeze current sales by some youtuber in a baseball hat blabbing performance details the moment he gets a 1180. Predictably he would think he's being clever by framing his language in hypotheticals with a wink-wink as a way to get around confidentiality. Seen it plenty of times. That's how I read this NDA, the timing of it, and the part about not "speculating or hypothesizing" - to avoid a loophole for leaking.
 
Last edited:
Wow! Way to look desperate Jen Suhn! First GPP and the return 300K GPUs from an added value customer, then crybaby tactic because journalists know what you're going to do? Doesn't look good Jen Suhn. No, not at all.
Edit- ya see he's forming a trend in behavior. Looks scared. Jenson, don't look scared.
 
No you didn't. You just didn't get the program benefits. And no, that doesn't equate to being shut out.
Well, much like this, you can still buy GPUs, but with very little support of any kind from NVIDIA. Pretty much the same thing, you are no longer in the cool kids club and do not get cool kids access.
 
Have a feeling the same stupid idiot(s) that was behind GPP is involved with this NDA crap. Dont these idiots realize how this can backfire against them? No information can be suppressed for long if it is interesting or newsworthy, NDA or not. The more scandalous the info may be, the quicker it will leak. There will be wiki-leak type of tech sites that can put a serious hurt on Nvidia if it tries to conceal info that is disadvantageous to its products or customers. As annoyed by this dick move, I will NOT buy lesser hardware as a form of protest.
 
Tomato, potato? not really

There's a difference between having a smaller juice box than no juice at all.

There is a huge difference with getting engineering support and getting none and likely a chip at a higher cost to boot so your profit margins are terminated, oh and best yet you have to wait until they have enough chips to supply a second tier partner you just became when you said no to GPP.
 
There's a difference between having a smaller juice box than no juice at all.
There is a difference between posting a review on release day, and posting a review weeks later.

Just like there is a difference between being able to sell cards in quantities at a new GPU launch, and receiving some allocation months after launch.

That smaller juice box is actually an order of magnitude smaller, and may not be enough to feed your family.
 
Have a feeling the same stupid idiot(s) that was behind GPP is involved with this NDA crap. Dont these idiots realize how this can backfire against them? No information can be suppressed for long if it is interesting or newsworthy, NDA or not. The more scandalous the info may be, the quicker it will leak. There will be wiki-leak type of tech sites that can put a serious hurt on Nvidia if it tries to conceal info that is disadvantageous to its products or customers. As annoyed by this dick move, I will NOT buy lesser hardware as a form of protest.

You'll have to explain where specifically the "dick move" is, because the NDA doesn't prohibit anything "scandalous" or negative from being disclosed. Positive, negative or otherwise, it just has to be after the embargo date.

This may be hard for tantruming gamers to understand but there are potential business ramifications and drawbacks to even positive details being released earlier than the company wants. For one it can freeze sales on current products. This is why NDA's exist.
 
Looks like my new build in the next year will be full AMD. That'll be a first for me, and I'm pretty happy about it!
 
That nda looks alot like one for an employment agreement at a tech company. I guess anyone agreeing to it is basically going to be working for them anyway.
 
I don't get it. Nvidia has a great market position and great products. Why oh why are they trying so desperately hard to repeatedly shotgun themselves in the face?

Ambition, self-interest, stock price, quarterly reports, but most importantly... pure greed that would make Lehman Brothers blush. And they may potentially get away with it because as Vegeta succinctly already pointed out, the future will be in AI and large data centers, and to a lesser degree mining. Not to mention they have such a monopolistic foothold on the market, they're attempting to control the narrative with these NDA's the same way Comcast and Disney controls the news to fit their narrative.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: MrXL
like this
I want to thank NVIDIA for this

since the 680 I have been buying 2 NVIDIA card and 2 AMD cards

being on 1600p and now on 4k sometimes I could cf to work and not sli or the other way around depending on the game


NVIDIA is now going to be saving me thousands of dollars by not buying any of their cards

i'll live with my 1080 ti strix till AMD put out a faster card than it

NVIDIA can keep theirs i'm back to AMD only
 
I did have stuff typed up, but lost it.

I dont know what to think about all this.

I dont know all the ins and outs of it but, might this shit grow and possibly be detrimental to the site ?

I mean, if x company asks you to sign an nda, aslong as they allow you to do a fair honest review at the end of the day, is it worth getting blacklisted ?

I applaud the gpp shit stance and I am sure there has been some dumb as shit nda’s signed over the years, but couldnt all of this make it hard for this site ?

Meaning, those who sign upto x nda, say x nda says, do not give examples to hardocp to review, might it lead to that ? and making for example, nvidia cards to not be reviewed here unless you pay for them and at todays prices, shit aint cheap.

I am not starting shit, I am just wondering that if this continues and may even get worse, would or could it cause real problems to this site financially or otherwise ?
 
They wouldn't be a monopoly.. that said, its unlikely they will drive AMD to the ground... I can only think its Volta will be incremental and not a blow out.
Nvidia actually gradually attempt to bury AMD graphic division as possible. Major retails notably the like of Best Buy did not supply recent AMD Card. Nvidia still refuse to adopt standard in term of codes and API by requiring the use of their quirks.
Let remind the infamous Ash of Singularity, Time Spy where AMD hardware were purposely left starved code wise after Nvidia went after the developers to drop some key features. No wonder the PC gaming industry is an utter mess.
 
I mean, wasn't it obvious that this kind of thing would happen when goldman faps signed an agreement with nv? That was when their stock started becoming ridiculously over valued, and nvidia being friends with the scum bags on wallstreet also started acting like they were above the law. And there is nothing anyone can do about it except hit them in their pocket book, it's the ONLY thing they understand.
 
I did have stuff typed up, but lost it.

I dont know what to think about all this.

I dont know all the ins and outs of it but, might this shit grow and possibly be detrimental to the site ?

I mean, if x company asks you to sign an nda, aslong as they allow you to do a fair honest review at the end of the day, is it worth getting blacklisted ?

I applaud the gpp shit stance and I am sure there has been some dumb as shit nda’s signed over the years, but couldnt all of this make it hard for this site ?

Meaning, those who sign upto x nda, say x nda says, do not give examples to hardocp to review, might it lead to that ? and making for example, nvidia cards to not be reviewed here unless you pay for them and at todays prices, shit aint cheap.

I am not starting shit, I am just wondering that if this continues and may even get worse, would or could it cause real problems to this site financially or otherwise ?


I don't think this is Kyle's first rodeo.
 
Sounds like it's about time tech sites started their own "GPP," except one good for the consumer...as in a GeForce Partner Program to prevent NVIDIA strong-arming reviewers.
 
I don't know, it all seems fairly boiler plate. Without other company NDA's to compare it too, I'm not really sure how over the top this one is. (Not that I don't trust Kyle when he says it's bad.)
 
I don't know, it all seems fairly boiler plate. Without other company NDA's to compare it too, I'm not really sure how over the top this one is. (Not that I don't trust Kyle when he says it's bad.)
First time I have ever seen a blanket multi-year non-product NDA from a company besides EK. And I have seen NDAs for 20 years. GPP would have been "confidential information."
 
Yeah, the scope is fairly far reaching.. honestly it looks like some of the NDA's I've signed as part of employment agreements.
 
It will be very interesting to see when these embargo dates start to be set.

Saaaay... about 2 weeks after the "Founders Edition" pre-order sells out?

One way it's always been obvious to me if a game is going to be complete shit is if the review embargo is set after the release date, would be sad to see that happen with hardware, but something else to watch.

Also fuck Nvidia.
 
But the "penalty" for not signing the NDA would be to not receive NVidia products ahead of release in the future.

Kyle said that his reporting on GPP would result in exactly that too, and this could be the end of [H]. How many journalists would you think are going to risk the same? Hardware review websites are now in the same prisoner's dilemma with the NDA as the OEMs were with GPP. Those who sign will have a massive economic advantage over those who don't.

Why the end of [H] ? they can still buy cards and review, and for the real world type reviews we get here. We want the same cards and drivers available to the public anyways, not cherry picked cards, beta drivers and bullshit promises that arent delivered on release (thats a jab for AMD) pre released reviews have been so neutered these days anyways, build up lots of hype and gag orders on reviewers to release limited benchmarks to keep the hype going.

Ill take a review site thats going to call bullshit when its preset over a site who tries to smooth over issues or skip discussing them to keep their free samples flowing anyday.
 
It will be very interesting to see when these embargo dates start to be set.

Saaaay... about 2 weeks after the "Founders Edition" pre-order sells out?

One way it's always been obvious to me if a game is going to be complete shit is if the review embargo is set after the release date, would be sad to see that happen with hardware, but something else to watch.

Also fuck Nvidia.
You're absolutely right. The only reason I can think of for them to do this is that they know their next cards suck and they want people to buy before the reviews come out.
 
Sounds like it's about time tech sites started their own "GPP," except one good for the consumer...as in a GeForce Partner Program to prevent NVIDIA strong-arming reviewers.
The:
Ubiased Tech Reviewers Consortium or UTRC.
No NDAs signed.
No review samples.
No direct exchange of ads for reviews.
A promise of tough but fair reviews, with clear and reproducible methodology.
 
[URL='https://www.hardocp.com/news/2018/06/25/nvidia_looks_to_gag_journalists_multiyear_blanket_ndas' said:
The NDA in full.[/URL]

Print out a copy of this, record a video of you lighting it on fire and letting it burn, post it to youtube, send a link to EK's marketing department...

Do the same with Nvidia's if they send it...
 
Is there a way [H] can compile a list of those who have not signed the NDA? We will only know those who have definitely not. As Gideon said above though and
What this means to me, essentially, is that any site releasing reviews of nvidia products on/before release day must've signed the NDA, and their writings are now no more than biased marketing blurbs for nvidia, rendering their content worthless.

All I have to do is wait a bit for a source I trust to get a retail sample and run it through its paces. If anything, this'll make filtering out the shills WAY easier. (y)
We might just look at day one reviews. Day one = NDA.
It would be quite funny if the comment sections for day one reviews were widely made aware of this fact.
Because anyone that has signed, cannot be trusted to be a unbiased journalist.
 
Last edited:
The part of section 2 I find confusing is it says:

“Notwithstanding expiration of this agreement, recipients obligation with respect to confidential information shall expire five years after the date of its disclosure to the recipient”

What exactly does the “notwithstanding expiration of this agreement “ mean here? Does specific product CI expire with this agreement or in 5 years? The part of not leaking trade secrets seems fine to me as does the rest of the NDA except that one specific confusing line. If I were Heise I’d have asked Nvidia for clarification before signing rather than go off the rails over this.

Basically only expiration of the NDA time period means it expires. If you leave the company you signed NDA under or whatever, it still stands.


The:
Ubiased Tech Reviewers Consortium or UTRC.
No NDAs signed.
No review samples.
No direct exchange of ads for reviews.
A promise of tough but fair reviews, with clear and reproducible methodology.

I like this idea. Wonder if Kyle would be interested in it.. if Ngreedia wants to throw shit around like this, it would be funny to see that hot potato land in their lap.
 
I'm not an expert in legalese, but holy crap.

This NDA coverage seems to cast a wide enough net where almost any piece of news with the mere mention of nVidia could be used as grounds for legal action.

You cannot post information which hypothesizes or predicts stuff about nVidia UNLESS it was internally developed; yeah, have fun proving it wasn't a "leak".
 
Is there a way [H] can compile a list of those who have not signed the NDA? We will only know those who have definitely not. As Gideon said above though and

We might just look at day one reviews. Day one = NDA.
It would be quite funny if the comment sections for day one reviews were widely made aware of this fact.
Because anyone that has signed, cannot be trusted to be a unbiased journalist.
How does a review site agreeing not to publish confidential information about a GPU prior to an embargo date equate to being biased? Just curious.

You'd think Nvidia invented NDAs with some of the gamerchair lawyers in this thread.
 
Last edited:
How does a review site agreeing not to publish confidential information about a GPU prior an embargo date equate to being biased? Just curious.

You'd think Nvidia invented NDAs based on some of the comments in this thread.

As per the OP, of course tech NDAs are normal. Hell, I may have some on me from a very large tech company and may even NDA people in my own line of business. That's normal and I have no problem with it. But now with the new NDA from Nvidia being more like GPP, I have a problem with that as it affects journalistic integrity.
What is not normal is
The German website Heise is telling us that NVIDIA's new NDA is much more far reaching than product-specific information, and stretches out 5 years.
So when the NDA is not just product or need to know specific information, then there is a problem. Because it's well beyond the scope of what is typically NDA'd on this side of things.
It would be like me being NDA'd as a 3rd party, then told I can't even discuss anything public about the company I just signed with, without their direct approval, or give opinions about anything remotely related to a journalist.

Attack on the journalistic work - The NDA should apply to all information provided by Nvidia, so it did not refer to a specific product or information. There was also no concrete expiration date. It was also full of conditions that ran counter to journalistic principles. Our legal department clapped their hands over their heads as they read the document.
Might also want to read clause #3 in that NDA where it says
shall only use confidential information solely for the benefit of nvidia corporation
. That is journalistic restriction.
 
Back
Top