> Because this "choice" restricts freedom of other people. It restricts the freedom of your employees to sell/give your company's private information to other

> Because this "choice" restricts freedom of other people. It restricts the freedom of your employees to sell/give your company's private information to other people, and the freedom of competitors to use them to obtain it or take it for themselves. If you come up with the same technology through legitimate means, then the fact that someone else holds it as a trade secret doesn't matter. It's not like patents; if someone gets there on their own effort, they're not encumbered by trade secret laws. It's also important to note that trade secret protection laws do not generally cover reverse-engineering. Protection from that (if any) comes from copyright/patent law. Asking people to honest does restrict their economic choices, but so does asking them to not rob banks.