Recent news of Steve Jobs’ return to work at Apple has reignited the debate over his company’s secretive nature.  After all, the world was told his leave of absence was time to deal with “hormonal abnormalities,” but then it was revealed that he had a liver transplant.  What are we to think?

A better question  may be, why are we to know?

Some of the answer is to be found, no doubt, in our hyper-interest in celebrities of every stripe.  It was a bonanza for the yap-parazzi when Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died on the same day.  He may not like it, but Steve Jobs has been a part of the same celebrity pantheon for a long time.  The only difference is that he is the CEO of a publicly held company.

At a recent Business Wire seminar on investor relations, there was quite a bit of attention paid to what is called, RegFD, the final rule by which the Securities and Exchange Commission monitors selective disclosure and insider trading.  It seems straight-forward enough: “The rules are designed to promote the full and fair disclosure of information by issuers, and to clarify and enhance existing prohibitions against insider trading.”

Who could argue with that?  No one, but, there is a quirky element to it all that could ultimately lead to every public company having to meet standards.  The rule allows that material information — news that can cause a share price to rise or fall — might be revealed unintentionally.  If it is, the company has 24 hours to make it right by broad release.  So far, so good.

Until a company is faced with its stock moving on the basis of non-traditional material information, like the health of an executive.  For Apple, this is now material information in they eye’s of its investors, even Warren Buffet says so.  But not for all investors in all companies.  So, as Don Clark of the Wall Street Journal agreed that day of the investor relations seminar, it may be that ultimately each company will have its own list of material information.

What a difference a day can make.

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