Fellow Acrobat Users:

Thank you all for your thoughts and concerns over the strange scenario I was in concerning the printing of PDFs with security settings.

Firstly, I am not in the position to tell our customers what to do. I am but a lowly Prepress Specialist and I have to answer up the food chain to supervisors, production managers, account executives and salespeople.

Let me remind you that the PDFs were set with "Printing Allowed" but nothing else was changeable.

And after talking with a relative who works in the Pharmaceutical field, she told me that this procedure of reviewing and printing competitors PDFs is a known practice. The PDFs were posted online in an area open to the public and the files were "PI's" (Product Information Sheets), which is much like an MDS (Manufacture's Data Sheet), which is made available to the public and consumers for review. (Think of when you buy a food product and the ingredients and nutritional information by law has to be listed and made available to the public.)

So, legally, I think our company was safe. I'll keep you all informed if any backlash transpires.