I think the “embargoed” mentioned by Rob is different than the “embargoed” you mention.
If a company ask you to agree to an embargo before you get a product or information then your agreement establishes that it is embargoed, and you had better respect that if you want to keep that relationship. In some cases companies may even provide a time limited NDA to make the embargo legally binding. The key to this is that you assent to being embargoed before any information is disclosed.
Rob mentions being sent information that says it’s “embargoed”, without seeking any confirmation to it beforehand. In that case there is no embargo. The reporter didn’t agree to it so the words have no meaning. Reporters generally dislike the presumption of being told they are “embargoed” instead of being asked if they will accept an embargo. Reporters in the past have just ignored the “embargo” and published the information. Some sleazy PR companies realized this, and figured that if they had some PR they wanted to ‘leak’ that would not normally get published they could manipulate reporters by calling it “embargoed” to trick reporters into publishing it.
