[crispinb]

> You think the post I replied to doesn't break (at the very least) that rule?

I'm not sure whether it did or not - quick responses (which surely we all make at least sometimes?) aren't always very carefully considered. I'm pretty sure though if challenged I would typically try and make my response to the challenge more thoughtful than my first attempt. I take it this is at least part of the point of the rule: escalation avoidance.

I had no snarky intent, but I can see my expression was (at least) ambiguous. This:

> it wouldn't occur to me however to use my own experience to make a sweeping judgement about what Google does in the large

was intended as a counter to this:

> It's pretty obvious from my ...

ie. I'm saying that what appears 'obvious' from my experience is no guide to what's actually true about the intentions & practises of an enormous and (unhelpfully) opaque organisation like Google. In my haste I didn't express that particularly well, so I'm happy to acknowledge a mea culpa on that score.