TechCrunch today has declared an end to embargoes, other than for exclusives and trusted companies. The underlying reason is that the embargo system is so often abused or ignored as to be pointless. Thus, TC says it’s time for a new site policy:

We’ve never broken an embargo at TechCrunch. Not once. Today that ends. From now our new policy is to break every embargo. We’ll happily agree to whatever you ask of us, and then we’ll just do whatever we feel like right after that. We may break an embargo by one minute or three days. We’ll choose at random.

Naturally, Mike Arrington and his staff have the right to take their site in whatever direction they want. And, as he elaborates in his post, because most PR firms issuing embargoed releases seldom take action against embargo breakers, there will probably be few if any consequences of their new policy.