Depends on how powerful each party is.<p>As an individual or small company, the NDAs you give to others are totally meaningless. You generally don't have the desire/funds to pursue people who violate the contract, and it's often difficult to prove anything.<p>Large/smart companies will also realize that they have all the power, and they'll include upper limits to the damages they have to pay. One of my companies was recently, egregiously ripped off by one of the 3 largest insurance companies in the world, and they had capped their liability at $100k. Fortunately, there was easy-to-prove malice, so they will end up having to pay us some day.<p>If you're the one signing the NDA and the other party is large and powerful, you actually could be successfully sued.<p>So in short: NDAs are powerful when you have the resources to back them up with lawsuits. As a developer, I've signed NDAs and non-competes for many small-to-medium businesses, and I've never been tempted to violate them, so I can't attest to the validity of that situation.