Google didn't avoid details here. Their General Counsel issued a categorical denial not just of Arrington's story, but of the notion that anything like Arrington's story had ever happened in any other circumstance. It is very difficult to argue that they're weaseling.

For whatever it's worth, Google is also not Enron. It's not hard to imagine Enron executives saying anything, because Enron was a sham business, "faking it until they made it" or, as it happened, fell off a cliff. Google generates tens of billions of dollars of revenue per year. They have a lot to lose. When Google's General Counsel says something newsworthy, it's not done casually.

Finally: I think it's worth reminding people that the other side of this argument is a person who claims not to have reported on this story until a few days ago because --- despite the fact that the story was immensely relevant to the public interest, and despite the fact that not reporting it put his own sources at grave risk not merely of losing their jobs but of being sued by billion dollar companies --- to have reported it earlier would have risked the bottom line of his own publication. Who are you going to believe?