MacRumors.com

The L.A. Times cites sources in-the-know that claim that ThinkSecret's Nick Ciarelli did indeed receive some amount of monetary compensation from Apple as part of their final settlement.

[Ciarelli] also received a payment from Apple, according to a person familiar with the case. Both sides declined to discuss details of the agreement.

There has been a tremendous amount of speculation that this may have been the case, but no real confirmation.

ThinkSecret issued a statement late last week that they had reached an amicable settlement with Apple over an almost 3 year old lawsuit accusing ThinkSecret of illegally obtaining and disseminating Apple trade secrets. The only details of the settlement revealed were that ThinkSecret would not reveal their sources, and would no longer be published. Later comments from Ciarelli's lawyer suggested that Apple settled to avoid potentially losing the case if it were pursued. Apple, however, has made no public comments settlement.