It is believable. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't be reamed like crazy for it, including fines. There's a difference between "this was an act of god accident" and "we created the environment where this accident was allowed to happen".
Let me throw this at you. They shipped hardware with an incomplete spec sheet. Probably by accident. What's the probability that they ship software with incorrect behavior? Like, say, the software on the device? Software which could engage the microphone and send it to a remote server? At their scale, this is possible to mess up, with all of the abstraction layers and number of customers they're dealing with.
Google is the most careless company to ever reach the level of success that they have, possibly tied with Facebook. They need to be slapped, HARD, by some government, or else we'll never see the true institutional change necessary for a company of their power.
Let me throw this at you. They shipped hardware with an incomplete spec sheet. Probably by accident. What's the probability that they ship software with incorrect behavior? Like, say, the software on the device? Software which could engage the microphone and send it to a remote server? At their scale, this is possible to mess up, with all of the abstraction layers and number of customers they're dealing with.
Google is the most careless company to ever reach the level of success that they have, possibly tied with Facebook. They need to be slapped, HARD, by some government, or else we'll never see the true institutional change necessary for a company of their power.