It's no wonder why Elsevier draws such ire from the librarian community... an analogy would be if a company legally disallowed its employees from discussing their salaries with anyone, in order to reduce the information available when any other employee negotiates a salary or raise.
A great comment, but did you intend the part I quoted as ironic? You are correct about the intent and the effect, but I think many (most?) companies request this of employees, and some require it. For managers and supervisors in some states, this is even legally defensible: http://ask.metafilter.com/45192/Wait-you-make-50k-more-than-...