> After this was pointed out Google updated the +1 buttons

Has Google ever claimed that the code had an innocent purpose and the privacy-bypass was purely accidental in nature? The descriptions of the code imply that not breaking Safari's privacy features required much less and much simpler code than what was in place.

If they didn't, then it wasn't so much as having it "pointed out" as "found out".

The context at the time (as best I recall) was this came on the heals of the wifi-snooping street view cars that cracked weak wifi encryption and recorded traffic, so maybe people weren't in the mood to listen to any defense.