"They made an absolute decision, and over time it becomes a corporate secret," she says.

The results from the well are a corporate secret, but Chevron is among the companies most aggressively lobbying for the area to be opened.

Most of the cases, he and other executives said, remain carefully guarded corporate secrets.

Which corporate secrets are the stuff of legend?

And not just any small corporate secret, but the secret, would that make it easier to understand?

They couldn't all have been selling corporate secrets.

Others want to mine credit card addresses or steal corporate secrets.

That's one corporate secret I don't mind letting you in on.

Even today, such information, though presumedly not a corporate secret, isn't exactly shouted from the rooftops.

What was a tightly guarded corporate secret for nearly 100 years is now one stop on the guided tour.