Non-disclosure agreement in the context of Illegal agreement

Confidentiality involves a set of rules or a promise sometimes executed through confidentiality agreements that limits the access to or places restrictions on the distribution of certain types of information.

DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVDs. DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in most of the world in the 2000s. As of 2025, it continues to compete with its high-definition Blu-ray Disc counterpart, while both receive competition as the collective delivery method of physical media by streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and an MPEG-2 decoder (e.g., a DVD player, or a computer DVD drive with a software DVD player). Commercial DVD movies are encoded using a combination of MPEG-2 compressed video and audio of varying formats (often multi-channel formats as described below). Typically, the data rate for DVD movies ranges from 3 to 9.5 Mbit/s, and the bit rate is usually adaptive. DVD-Video was first available in Japan on October 19, 1996 (with major releases beginning December 20, 1996), followed by a release on March 24, 1997, in the United States.

The DVD-Video specification was created by the DVD Forum and was not publicly available. Certain information in the DVD Format Books is proprietary and confidential and Licensees and Subscribers were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The DVD-Video Format Book could be obtained from the DVD Format/Logo Licensing Corporation (DVD FLLC) for a fee of $5,000. FLLC announced in 2024 that "On December 31, 2024, the current DVD Format/Logo License ("License") will expire. On the same date, our Licensing program, which originally started from 2000, will be terminated. There will be no new License program available and thus no License renewal is required."

A trade secret is information that a business keeps confidential to maintain a competitive advantage. Well-known examples include the Coca-Cola formula and the recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Unlike other forms of intellectual property ("IP"), trade secrets do not require formal registration and can remain protected indefinitely, provided the information continues to meet the legal requirements for trade secret status. Instead, non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), among other measures, are commonly used to keep the information secret.

Banking secrecy, alternatively known as financial privacy, banking discretion, or bank safety, is a conditional agreement between a bank and its clients that all foregoing activities remain secure, confidential, and private. Most often associated with banking in Switzerland, banking secrecy is prevalent in Luxembourg, Monaco, Hong Kong, Singapore, Ireland, and Lebanon, among other off-shore banking institutions.

Otherwise known as bank–client confidentiality or banker–client privilege, the practice was started by Italian merchants during the 1600s near Northern Italy (a region that would become the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland). Geneva bankers established secrecy socially and through civil law in the French-speaking region during the 1700s. Swiss banking secrecy was first codified with the Banking Act of 1934, thus making it a crime to disclose client information to third parties without a client's consent. The law, coupled with a stable Swiss currency and international neutrality, prompted large capital flight to private Swiss accounts. During the 1940s, numbered bank accounts were introduced creating an enduring principle of bank secrecy that continues to be considered one of the main aspects of private banking globally. Advances in financial cryptography (via public-key cryptography) could make it possible to use anonymous electronic money and anonymous digital bearer certificates for financial privacy and anonymous Internet banking, given enabling institutions and secure computer systems.

A private label, also called a private brand or private-label brand, is a brand owned by a company, offered by that company alongside and competing with other businesses' brands. A private-label brand is almost always offered exclusively by the firm that owns it. However, in rare instances, the brand is licensed to another company. The term often describes products, but can also encompass services.

The most common definition of a private label product is one that is outsourced: company A makes a product for company B, which company B then offers under their brand name. However, it can also define products made in retailer-owned firms. For example, in 2018, The Kroger Company had 60% of its private brands produced by third parties; the remaining 40% was manufactured internally by plants owned by Kroger. Private-label producers are usually anonymous, sometimes by contract. In other cases, they are allowed to mention their role publicly.

A secret ingredient is a component of a product that is closely guarded from public disclosure for competitive advantage. Sometimes the ingredient makes a noticeable difference in the way a product performs, looks or tastes; other times it is used for advertising puffery. Companies can go to elaborate lengths to maintain secrecy, repackaging ingredients in one location, partially mixing them in another and relabeling them for shipment to a third, and so on. Secret ingredients are normally not patented because that would result in publication, but they are protected by trade secret laws. Employees who need access to the secret are usually required to sign non-disclosure agreements.